Starbound: A look into the Cosmos
by Rex Tyrrant
Summary: A new adventure awaits Rex as he journey's through the Cosmos to find out how he got dropped into this universe, and why it happened. Dawning a new, leafy appearance, how long can he last on these new, hostile environments before falling victim to it's inhabitants?
1. The First Stage

**_Chapter 1: A look into the cosmos_**

_Now, awaken, little wolf-human…_

Rex, still half asleep, had attempted to swat away the disembodied voice that commanded him to rise. This was to no avail, however, as there was seemingly nothing to swat, so he shifted a bit in an attempt to get comfortable again, and tried to go back to sleep. The voice seemed to be able to sense Rex's attempt to drift back off to sleep, and spoke again in an effort to awaken him.

_Arise, little wolf-human._

This time it sounded a little more solid and strict, but, at the same time, got a little more on Rex's nerves. He twisted and turned a bit more, trying to shake off the annoyance of the voice that kept attempting to summon him to the world. He became comfortable once more, and, again, attempted to return to the dreamscape.

_If you wish to live… Open your eyes, little wolf-human._

This brought Rex back to reality, seeing how that he very much wanted to live and not die. He was, however, confused as to what would kill him if he refused to open his eyes. Not intending on finding out, he opened them, breaking down the walls that separated him from the senses of the bright and vivid outside world. The first sense that made it's way to Rex's conscience was the sense of touch. He could feel. He could feel the green vegetation that littered the terrains surface brushing against his face, legs, and feet. He could feel a gentle breeze of the wind blowing on him, which, in all honesty, made him feel a bit cold.

Rex could see. He could see the vibrant light-blue skies dotted with shapeless strips of white overhead. He could glimpse the bright, yellow orb of light that was placed in the light-blue blanket that cover the world, the sun. He allowed his gaze to slowly drift around, which finally landed on a forest that, from his current perspective, didn't seem very far from his current position. He still felt a little numb, and his head throbbed lightly, but he was able to look around to observe a small portion of his current surroundings with ease.

_So, you're finally awake._

This time, Rex jolted at the sound of the disembodied voice as the cold, hard words sent a threatening chill down his spine, which triggered feeling in the rest of his previously limp figure. He turned so that his body was facing ground in a push-up position, and slowly rose to his feet from there. He finally stood up and immediately began to observe more of his current surroundings. He seemed to be on the top of a fairly short but wide mountain that was surrounded at the base by an incredibly large forest. Or, at least he assumed it was large, seeing how he couldn't see any sort of ending to the great expanse of the dark green trees. The sun was sitting on it's midday perch high above in the light-blue sky, sharing it's radiant light and comforting warmth with Rex. He shifted his gaze back down towards the forest to see some green-and-gray-littered mountains sticking out of the leafy, green sea. Some smaller than the mountain he currently stood upon, others much larger, that made the mountain Rex was currently on seem like a pebble.

On some of the other mountains, smoke was visible, and Rex could make out tents, which he assumed belonged to other people. He looked over a bit to see a few trees on the mountain that he was on, as well as a small pond of clear water and some plants that he had never seen before growing out of the ground, growing fruit on their many stems. The fruit actually looked quite edible. Appetizing even. He began to walk around some more at a slow pace, continuing to take in the green layout of the land that was spread out vastly before him.

After looking around some more aimlessly, his eyes widened. He had just realized something. Something that he should have realized as soon as he opened his eyes. Something, that he now felt a bit embarrassed about for not realizing sooner. The fact was obvious, but was able to slip undetected by Rex's mindset somehow, until just now. He sped up the pace in which he surveyed the surrounding area. He even ran a bit to the edges of the mountain in an attempt to see farther past the forest which, seeing how the forest looked almost endless, ended fruitlessly. He slowly walked back to where he had awoken and sat there, limply. He had NO idea where he was.

_It's apparent that you finally realized your situation._

At this point, Rex felt like the disembodied voice was tormenting him. He felt a bit broken by now. He had no idea where he was, and the sun had already began it's decent in preparation for the moon. He didn't want to be stuck outside with no type of warmth or light, ESPECIALLY at a place that he wasn't familiar with. There could be wild boars, or wolves, or even rabid monkeys for all he could know. He snapped out of this trance of worries and focused on what he needed to do now. He decided that he would have to journey to one of the locations of the smoke pillars and see if anyone would be kind enough to let him hang around for nightfall. Rex jumped up to his feet, with a new goal in mind. As he headed towards a side of the mountain to begin his decent to the ground. Just as he began to move, the voice, again, took notice of this.

_Are you even aware of your current appearance?_

_Current appearance?_ Rex thought. _What did it mean by that? _He pondered why the voice had said 'appearance,' and proceeded to look at his hands and wrists. Once he took a look at his palms, he couldn't stop. He had a slight green-ish skin color and his hands were adjourned with small, green leaves. He slowly shifted his gaze to his hands, which were actually claws, sharp and painful-looking. He pulled back the sleeves of his torn jacket to reveal even more leaves that protruded from his arms, which freaked him out to the point where he quickly put his jacket sleeves back in the position they were, with no intention of ever pulling them back again. He spastically looked around for a bit, before locating what he was looking for; the small pond. Rex ran over to the pond at a rapid speed, stopping right before the edge of the small pool of water, nearly falling in. He looked at his reflection in the mirror-like surface of the water, jumping back a bit in fear from the creature he thought he saw in the liquid, only to realize that it was his reflection. He walked over to it again and looked back into the water.

His blue hair seemed to be turned into blue leaves that worked very similarly to hair, expect more… planty. He also saw that his mouth had two downward-pointing fangs on the exterior of his mouth, and a row of incredibly sharp teeth on the interior. His wolf ears were turned into gray-ish leaves that he could still hear perfectly clear out of, despite them now being foliage. His eyes were also different. They were just black. No indication of any color, just solid black iris's and pupils. Rex found this weird, but it wasn't the creepiest part of his new look. He looked like some sort of savage monster. Sighing, Rex decided to traveling over to one of the fires on the other mountains, after realizing there wasn't anything else he could do. He backed away from the pond and looked at his feet. His ankles had some leaves attached to then in a certain pattern, which was odd when you compared them to the randomly placed leaves that were on his arms. His toes were pointed similarly to his claws, which hinted at the ability to climb and run at a bit of a faster pace than humans.

He also realized his current getup. He wasn't wearing the jacket that he normally wore, and this one was tattered and ripped in multiple places, exposing bare skin where pieces of the clothing were missing. He had a sort of poncho made out of leaves that was attached to his gray/silver scarf somehow. He still had his Dragon's Gift wrist-wear with their purple jewels on them that Axis had given him, and he had his bottomless bag that was strapped across his chest. He willed it open and a small, digital screen popped up instead. The top of the screen was labeled inventory, which told Rex that his bottomless bag wasn't so bottomless. It was also very empty. _Of course it's empty._ Rex thought. _How expected._ He also had shorts which were in a tattered condition, but nothing was ripped, fortunately. He didn't have any footwear of any sort, but he's been walking around fine without it.

Rex's observation of his new form and current gear was halted when he noticed that the sky was turning slightly orange. He then realized that he was suppose to head out for the other mountain hours ago, and it was almost nightfall. Understanding this, he took off dashing towards the nearest mountain. He jumped off of his mountain in an effort to save time, and landed in a roll, so that he didn't get harmed when he landed. This also allowed him to keep his current speed instead of being slowed down, and continued to race against the sun. The moon…s? The moons, plural, were visible by now, and the sky was more purple than it was orange, which increased the urgency of Rex's mad dash, as unearthly growls and roars could be heard from multiple directions. There really is no way to describe what he's hearing.

As Rex was running through the forest, he saw a feral creature with blue skin, some white horns, and two heads hungry-looking heads running straight at him. It made a sort of voice that didn't sound like anything he had ever heard. The unearthly growled was replied to, by more growls of the same type, which could be heard nearby. Rex was able to jump and land on one of their heads, using it as an extra step platform that he bounced off of to grab the branch of a tree, and used the momentum of his swing to fly a short ways forward. He landed and turned around to face what he thought was maybe one or two of the creatures he had just encountered. But no. There was like, twenty. It may have even been thirty. Rez attempted to summon his spell book and blade from his Dragon's Gift to take out some of the creatures, but neither decided to appear, so now he lost some distance between him and the monsters.

He turned around and continued his sprint, but the trees began to mess with him because he was moving too fast. it became harder to decipher which trees were in the foreground, or closest, and which trees were in the background, or furthest. He finally saw the base of the hill which led to the mountaintop that he saw the fire on and began climbing up it. Rex was right when he assumed that the claws and toe-claws made it easier to navigate, he was already halfway up the side of the mountain, nearing land he could walk on. He made it to the top of the cliffside, and ran up the mountain to the location of the fire, a few tents, and a long, wooden log with some figures sitting on it.

Rex approached the figures cautiously. The two moons were out completely by now and the sun was no where in sight. The moons offered a large amount of light, but not for farther away objects. Rex was close enough to the figures for the campfire's light and the moonlight to make the figures clearly visible. They were both humanoid. One of them had a fin at the top of it's head, and two at the side of it's head. It also had three red eyes forming a triangular shape. The figure looked about a year older than Rex, and is dressed in gray clothing that looked very similar to japanese traditional Kimono clothing. The second figure, which looked slightly younger than Rex, by about a year to two, looked like a bird. It had an odd 'hairstyle' and was a combination of red and white feathers. This one was in a simple skirt and shirt, not as near as fancy or cool looking as the first figure.

As Rex got near, the Kimono-clad one seemed to notice him and grabbed a flaming stick from the campfire, holding it like a weapon. The other one hid a bit behind the one carrying the 'weapon.' "Back, Floran savage! Don't make me use this..!" It shouted, uncertainty in it's voice.

Rex stepped back and but his hands in the air, slightly. "Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to freak you out." He replied.

The One wielding the flaming stick lowered it a bit in a state of, what looked like, confusion. "Y-you can talk normally?" It asked.

Now REX was the one confused, looking at the flame-wielder with a sort of misunderstanding face. Just then, the Kimono creature's eyes widened and it chucked the flame stick at Rex who ducked under it. But when he ducked under it and looked up, he saw that the stick wasn't that close to hitting him, even if he WAS standing. He then heard a growl from behind him and turned around to a creature that was caught on fire, falling to the ground below. When it contacted with the ground, it exploded in a blaze of fire, and Rex could see that others of it's kind backed away slowly. He turned back towards the Kimono creature and managed a half meaningful half scared smile, assuming that it did that to save him from the beast that was sneaking up behind him. "Thanks, er…" Rex tried to thank it, but he didn't know anything about it. They DID just meet after all. And not exactly on the best note you've ever seen.

"Liax. My name is Liax, the Hylotl" He replied. Well, he looked and sounded masculine.

"Well, thank you for that, Liax."

"No problem, and… uhm… sorry for threatening to burn you alive and… uh… sorry for not, ya know, warning you about the monster behind you…" He said, kinda flustered, cheeks red.

"Oh, it's fine. Anyways, I'm Rex. A… what did you say? Floran?" Rex said, in an attempt to introduce himself.

The bird girl came out from behind Liax and looked at Rex curiously. "You… you don't know what you are?" She asked.

"No," Rex said, shifting gaze from Liax to her. "I was originally something else. I turned into this Floran form that you see me in now when I woke up this morning on that mountain over there." He said, pointing to the mountain he woke up on.

"Oh, that's weird. And you don't speak like a normal Floran does. You're weird too." She said.

"Thanks…" Rex replied sarcastically. "Might I have the pleasure of your name?"

"It's Maria. The Avian." She replied.

"I'm a Hylotl, which is a fish person. Florans are flower people, and Avians are bird people." Liax added for clarification.

"Alright, nice to meet you Maria." Rex said, smiling.

"Nice to meet you too, I guess. I still think Liax should have burned you." She replied, heartlessly.

"Now, Maria. That wasn't exactly the nicest thing to say." Liax cut in, looking down at Maria with a face of sadness, not disappointment. "I'm sorry Rex. She's the only survivor from her village when it was attacked by a mob a Florans. I took her aboard my spaceship and we've been a team ever since. She never really forgave them for what they've done."

Maria turned away while this was being said, stealing a glance at Rex every few seconds.

"Well, I suppose I can't blame her for hating Florans. I would probably be upset too if my friends and family weird killed, and I was left alive to mourn over the loss of everyone I knew. So I can understand that." Rex said.

"Come, Rex. Sit." Liax insisted, sitting down on the log with Maria and scooting over a bit to let him sit. "Maybe you could tell us a story?"

• • •

"-and the next thing I knew, I was here." Rex finished. He looked over towards the two who were staring at him, obviously disappointed that the story had ended. He had went ahead and talked about a lot of his adventures, including those when he was a human-wolf, or even just a wolf. His adventures with Lyra, Axis, Serenity… They continued to stare at him, and he shrugged and shook his head, letting them know that was it. Even Maria was disappointed that the story had ended.

"That was quite the story." Liax said. "It sounds like you had a pretty eventful life after meeting this Axis fellow."

Rex nodded.

"A dragon? Axis was a dragon? He was a dragon GOD!? That's so cool!" Maria added, obviously over the fact the Rex was a Floran.

This earned a chuckle from Rex, who remember a topic that he wanted to bring up. "Let's roll back a bit…" Rex started. "Liax, you said you had a spaceship, right?"

"That's Right." Liax answered.

"Really? Like, to travel the universe and things like that?"

"Yeah, about right. We ran out of fuel, so we come here to gather some. We were actually going to head off soon. The forest area is too densely wooded, it's a dangerous place to be at night."

"Yeah, I learned that the hard way… but… you get to travel the UNIVERSE! That's so cool! Go on adventures, Discover cool and exotic things…"

"Heh, yeah. It can get pretty wild out there… Hey, you don't know about the races, right?"

"Right."

"Would you mind a history lesson?"

"Oh boy…" Maria cut in. "This is going to be a long night…."

Liax rolled his eyes and began to speak. "Well, Maria being the only survivor of a Floran attack wasn't the entire reason I was hostile. Florans and Hylotl have a… history. You see, the reason that the Hylotl are scattered throughout the galaxy is because the Florans drove them away from their home planet. So, that's a thing. We're a peaceful race that would much rather talk things over than kill, save when a Floran is involved."

Rex nodded, curious for more information about the different races.

"Florans are the carnivorous hunters that would much rather stab first and not even thing about asking questions later. We were shocked by how you talked because Florans don't use pronouns that often. A lot of the time, the sentence isn't even considered a sentence. It's more like a fragment lacking pronouns. They're hostile to every race save the robot race, the glitches, because they could just about eat every other race. They find Avians to be the most delectable, however. As for why they're 'friends' with the Glitch, is because they taught the Florans their basic level of speaking and how to write."

"Avians are the bird-like race that believe in their deity, Kluex. They believe that they were punished by being sent to the mortal realm, and lost their wings, but they believe those wings will be regained when they go to Kluex in the afterlife."

"I don't believe in Kluex." Maria added.

"Right, those who don't believe in Kluex are dubbed exiles and are usually sentenced to death if that was ever said out loud."

"That hardly seems fair. So much for the right of speech. Besides… why would a god want you to die and get wings later? And how is it a SIN to be born on the ground, and not with Kluex? That would mean that you're dead when you were born." Rex said, quietly.

"EXACTLY! This guy gets me!" Maria shouted, pointing to Rex. He couldn't help but to smile.

"Right. That is a good point. Just… keep it to yourself if you ever come across an Avian village."

"Noted."

"Sadly, I don't know much about the other races, save small details. The Apex, ape people, are technological GENIUSES and have all sorts of electronics. Humans are run-aways from their home planet, which was destroyed by a space monster. Glitch are friends with Floran, and are built with a medieval theme in mind. And I've heard tale of a creature called a Novakid, but have yet to meet one on my travels."

"That's alright, that should be enough information to go off of for now. Thank you, Liax."

"Glad to help, Rex." He said, smiling. Then he realized something, and went into his backpack, pulling out a small capsule with a sword-like object in it, another capsule with a tent in it, and an odd u-shaped, yellow object. He dropped the backpack on the ground and lifted the yellow object to wear a blue beam was showing. At the end of that blue beam lied the hologram of a tent. It was then Rex noticed that the capsule containing the tent item wasn't being held by Liax anymore. He placed the Tent on the ground and it materialized into the real world.

"Woooah…" Rex said, amazing by whatever that yellow object was.

"Yeah. Uhm, would you like to sleep up here with use tonight, Rex? You can borrow this tent." Liax asked.

"Yeah! Come on Rex? Please?" Maria begged.

"U-uhm… I don't want to be a bother…" Rex replied, modestly.

"It's not a bother at all!" Liax replied. "I insist."

"Alright," Rex nodded. "No point in turning anything away."

"That's the spirit!" Maria chimed.

"Oh, and here." Liax said, as he tossed the capsule with the sword-like object in to Rex. "That's a weapon. You can use that to defend yourself." He explained as he crawled into his tent, yawning. Goodnight Rex, night, Maria."

Maria crawled into her tent. "Night guys." She yawned lazily.

"Night." Rex said, as he crawled into his tent. It was surprisingly roomy in there, and he could easily sleep without having to bend his knees to fit within a confined space, or risk leaving his feet outside the tent if he wanted his legs straight. It came with a pillow and blanket. It wasn't that cold, so he laid on top of the blanket instead of under it, and stared at the tent's ceiling, contemplating all that happened today. He had been turned into some sort of creature and dropped in a reality of different races scattered across the galaxy. He wondered what there would be to explore, or what adventures he would embark on. There would be no way he would stay on this planet for the rest of his life, right? He thought about his friends back on Earth, and how they were doing. But slowly, every thought processes was being taken over by the desire to do one thing, that he felt so very inclined to do.

Sleep.

And before he knew it, Rex drifted off to the dreamscape.

_Yes, little wolf-human. You are weak and tired. Rest now, for tomorrow is a very important day._

As he did the first time the disembodied voice spoke to him, he swatted at the air attempting to silence it as he rolled himself under his blanket. Only this time, the voice didn't speak again for the remainder of the night. Rex liked it that way.


	2. The Second Stage

Chapter 2 - A look into the Cosmos

It was morning, but this time Rex was able to wake himself up, instead of having some annoying voice do it for him. He yawned and smacked his jaws, crawling out of the tent slowly. He didn't feel sluggish or lazy to get up, he got up and jumped out of his tent, landing in a roll that he used the momentum of to launch to his feet. He took a deep breath, and exhaled peacefully as the morning breeze lightly slid across his face. He then decided to do something that he honestly didn't think would work. "Hey, disembodied voice?" Rex said, in an attempt to summon it. "Hello? No? Nothing?" He waiting a bit for a reply that never came. "Right… go figure."

The morning was beautiful. Well, at least, what he could see of it, regarding the fact that most of his view was dominated by the trees. It must've rained a bit yesterday, Rex assumed, seeing how small droplets of water kept rubbing against his bare feet as he stepped. The trees, however, took advantage of this, shining bright and beautifully as the sun's rays reflected off of the small bits of water that hid on the surface of the leaves belonging to the towers of wood. This scene put Rex into a bit of a thinking mood, the main question being what was he going to do now? He was on an unknown planet filled with things that wanted him dead with no way of even defending himself. And if there are other creatures such as the Hylotl out here, Rex didn't expect them to be just as kind as Liax or Maria, which was just a feeling, but a strong one that he felt was true. If that were the case, Rex may have to just simply stay on the mountain that he currently tread on. Food, any sort of nourishment, would be a task too. Not knowing which plant is delicious, edible, even poisonous! He would have no way of telling! This train of thought was stopped abruptly, however, as a voice called out to him from behind.

"Morning Rex." Maria said cheerfully as she skipped past him.

Rex tried to reply back with a 'good morning' of his own, but she was already at the other side of the mountain, beyond the reach she could hear him from. He was about to walk back to his tent, when he glimpsed the Avian girl turn around and skip back the way she had just come from. Rex supposed that Maria did this to pass the time in the mornings while waiting for Liax to get out of bed, or something. As she passed by a second time, Rex replied to the good-morning's greeting that she gave Rex the first time she passed him. "Mornin' Maria." He said as she passed him by again.

This time, when Maria turned around and came back, she stopped by Rex and looked up at him, looking sort of apologetic. "Sorry about that thing I said about how Liax should've burnt you, Rex." She said, sheepishly.

"Fogettaboutit." Rex replied, far more sluggishly than he had intended. This was rewarded by a giggle from the Avian girl. "Is this what you do each morning while waiting for Liax to get up? Skip back and forth between two points?"

"Well, if it's possible, of course. Sometimes were on an astroid field, so we have to stay indoors with the breathable air filters. Other times we don't have a small house and we're on a cold planet, I can't wander too far from the setup location, unless I want to freeze to death. There's never really much else to do around here in the mornings since Liax takes FOREVER to get up. old man… But I'm also kinda excited, cause we're blasting off to another planet today. We've been gathering a mass of minerals for, what seems like ages now, but now we have enough coal for a full tank of fuel and a LOT left over."

"I envy you space travelers. Maybe I'll get a ship one day, and I can explore the cosmos too."

"Well, we might be able to help with that." A familiar voice said.

Rex and Maria turned around to see Liax standing there, holding some sort of device with two buttons on it.

"What do you mean by that, Liax?" Rex asked.

"Maria? Could you pack up the gear we placed while I talk to Rex?"

"Yes sir!" Maria replied, smiling. She took out her yellow tool, similar to the one Liax used to place the tent last night, and get to work with re-collecting the tents and the such.

"Now, not to long ago during our travels, we flew over a planet with an Apex ship on it. After some investigation, it seemed that the ship was in perfect condition, with 1000 fuel in it. We found a note in the ship, stating that the owner of the ship had been picked up by another ship, leaving that one behind. If you want to, we can take you to that planet, since it's not out of the way, and drop you off there. Then you can use that ship. What do ya say?"

Rex stood there in a bit of a paralyzed state. "M-my own ship? To travel the stars in?" Rex asked, not believing what he was hearing.

Liax nodded. "I'll even write a little notebook of things to get you started. If the story you told us last night is true, which I believe it is, then you need to get by to your friends and family in your world. Of course, you should also explore this galaxy, since you seem to have a sense for danger."

Again, Rex stood there paralyzed. "R-really? We just met yesterday and you're already trying to help me out?"

"Yeah. You seem like a fantastic guy, and I didn't have to be near you that long to figure that out. Besides, it isn't out of the way. So it's no inconvenience to us, whatsoever. You'll keep the sword, we'll give you a tent and a flashlight, and you should be good to go."

"Th-thanks! Ugh, I'm freaking out. Then again, having my very own spaceship… That would be so cool! Really, I owe you guys one. If we ever meet somewhere again, and you need anything, you're gonna let me know, got it?"

"Okay, okay, I get it." Liax laughed.

Rex couldn't help but to join in.

Maria walked up, holding a capsule with a flashlight in it and another with a tent in it. "Here you go, Rex." She said as she handed the two items to him, which he proceeded to put in his inventory.

"I'll write the guide on the way." Liax said, as he pulled out a pen and a notebook. "Is everything ready, Maria?" He asked, still writing in the notebook.

"Yeah, everything's set to go, Liax." She replied.

"Excellent!" He said as he motioned for the two to get closer with his pen.

When they were all elbow to elbow, Liax pulled out the remote from before and pressed the single button that was on it. In a flash of light, everything in Rex's vision turned red, the white, and it was just him in a blank, empty expanse, floating around in nowhere. His vision became red again, then he could see. Maria and Liax casually walked into the main part of the ship while Rex looked around the room rapidly, questioning what had just happened and wondering where they were.

"We're in the ship." Maria said, walking back over to where Rex was and dragging him across the ground to the cockpit of the ship. She lifted him back up when they go to the cockpit with the glass window that could be seen out of to look at the cosmos.

"Wwwooaaahhh…." Rex whispered, breathlessly, as he looked out of the cockpit's window to observe the vast, star and solar-system littered galaxy that was laid out before him.

"What's it like, Rex?" Liax asked. "You're taking a look into the cosmos. The infinite expanse of space, laid out in front of you. I don't know about you, but whenever I see this, I suddenly get a feeling of adventure that could be on any planet. You never know until you explore it yourself."

Rex turned around to see Liax handing him the notebook.

"That should get you started, and it should have a few tips and the such on what you might want to do if you plan on getting anywhere in the galaxy. Since we'll be beaming you down to the planet as we pass it, we should probably get out good-bye's in now." Liax said.

"Right…" Rex agreed, feeling almost completely overwhelmed with what was happening, not to mention what was going to happen. He was in a ship! He looked at space! Heck he was going to GET HIS OWN SHIP! He was almost on the verge of just fainting, but that wouldn't do at all. Well, at least until he was in his ship, orbiting a planet from a same distance. He sighed, smiling. "Well, this is goodbye then. Thank you two, so very much for what you've done. I know that a simple 'thank you' won't suffice, but thank you anyways. Don't forget that I feel this is going under unpaid debts that I WILL one day repay."

"We'll keep that in mind. It was a interesting encounter, Rex." Liax said, smiling warmly. Rex offered a high five, but Liax disregarded that and hugged him instead, which very much surprised him. He then walked into the cockpit room to begin their travel to the two's next destination, and Rex's sub-destination.

Maria came in and hugged Rex too, squeezing kinda tightly. "Bye Rex!" She said, obviously getting enjoyment out of taking away all of Rex's air. He managed to pat her on the head, which made her let go. She looked up at rex, smiling. "Well, go on. Get to the teleporter room and get ready to teleport!" She commanded.

"Okay, okay." Rex surrendered. "I'm going." As he walked in the direction of the teleporter room, he looked back at Maria. "Bye, Maria." He said, before continuing his advancement to the portal room.

She could only smile then.

"Okay, Rex. Get ready to press the button in 3…" Liax counted. Rex tensed a bit, feeling a bit overwhelmed with excitement. "..2.." This was it. This is where it begins. "…1…Now!"

He pressed the button, and the same thing that happened the first time with the teleporter happened again. Red, shifted to white, shifted to red, and then he could see again. He looked around at the new landscape, which appeared to be a forest that was not as nearly populated with trees as the last planet he was on. He saw the ship that Liax described, and entered it. Sure enough, there was the note saying that the ship was up for grabs since the previous owner left it for another one. He went into the cockpit and got out his book that Liax gave him. It had detailed instructions about how to set the ship to orbit the planet. It had whole sections on crafting materials and weapons, as well as what he needed to explore the Cosmos to the fullest. At the very back was a small drawing of Liax and Maria, waving. Rex opened the screen that he could use to set the ship in orbit, and pressed the button that did so.

The ship hissed and the door automatically closed as the space ship slowly began it's rise to the cosmos. The world below became smaller, and smaller, and smaller, until, before he knew it, he was orbiting the planet, and no features could be made out, like mountains or villages. The excitement! The adventure! Rex saw all of these possibilities stretch out before him. But before he got carried away, he did what he mentally told himself to do. He took the notebook, put it in his back, smiled, and passed out.

_And so your journey begins, doesn't it, little wolf-human?_

_May it be a successful one…_

_I'll always keep watch..._

_..._


	3. The Third Stage

**_Chapter 3: Encounters_**

_Rise, little Wolf-Human..._

_It begins..._

Rex quickly sat up, un-annoyed by the voice that ordered him to awaken. He was too busy smiling at the fact that he had his very own ship to explore the vast, adventure filled expanse of the cosmos in to be mad at the voice for yelling at him to wake up. He lurched himself to his feet, and trotted over to the cockpit door of the space-bound vessel. He opened the door and pressed his face against the windows of the ship as he had done on Liax's spaceship, looking out towards the mass of stars and planets that lie before him. Rex walked over to sit down in the pilot's seat to find a new planet to explore. This triggered a window, similar to his inventory, to pop up, illustrating a giant, scrollable star map. He stared at this map in awe before beginning to click around, looking for a solar system with more that two planets to land in. The book that Liax had given him explained that planets in the same solar system only require a single unit of fuel to travel between planets in that same system, whilst traveling to any other solar system required 200. He also had the option to manually pilot the ship, but he thought against it seeing how he would need a source a fuel that he could use to replace the lost amount that he would burn up during his travels. Besides, he had no idea how to drive.

He finally found a solar system with a fair amount of planets. Two forest planets, a snow planet, a desert planet, and an astroid field. It seemed relatively far from his current position, but to still registered as only 200 fuel as a cost. He pressed on the forest planet and pressed the travel button, which triggered the release of two more windows. One requesting Star-travel ID authentication, and another one that was blank. _…Authentication? _Rex thought. He didn't have any authentication, which could prove troublesome. He randomly pressed the green square in the center of the window which launched a sort of scanning sonar that scanned Rex vertically, multiple times. _Ah, gods… _Rex thought. _It's gonna kick me off of the ship now or something._ However, it did not. Instead, the window flashed and some text formed, saying 'New user Authentication complete.' Then that window closed, and the window that was previously empty now filled with data of what parts of the ship were being activated, where they were going, star data, landscape data, and a large amount of other information that Rex currently thought of as useless.

The ship began to move, starting out slowly and quickly gaining speed as it moved. He closed the window with the mass amount of data and walked into the main room of the ship, looking out of the windows to view the planets and stars that he passed by. He began to walk over to the other window when he noticed some sort of locker sticking out of the wall. He neared it and opened it, summoning two windows. One being his inventory, which Liax and Maria had apparently slipped some extra clothes into, and a new window titled 'Ship Locker.' He tapped some of the contents of the 64-spaced chest, which opened an extra window containing detailed descriptions of whatever he pressed on. Only two things were present in the locker. One being 5 seeds that Rex could plant to get fruit, and a Matter Manipulator, which was the same tool that Liax and Maria had so that they could place and destroy the stuff that they had placed. After dragging over the two items from the locker to his inventory, Rex stared at his matter manipulator curiously, wondering how it did what it did, and what made it run.

All the while the ship was still traveling, but Rex noticed how soundless it was, as no motors or engines or whirs could be heard from anywhere around the ship. He also couldn't feel that he was on a moving space ship. In fact, it felt like the ship was stationary, so Rex to one of the windows to double-check that the ship was still moving. After he confirmed that the ship was still in motion, he began to wander aimlessly around his surprisingly wide ship interior. He thought that, since the ship didn't move anything inside of it, even while it was moving, he should get some chairs and a table set up in there. Maybe a bed placed somewhere, or a station or couch or something to make his newly appointed home more… homey. He walked back into the cockpit of the ship and sat in the pilot seat, bringing out the notebook that Liax had made him. Rex decided that he needed to make sure he was prepared for the planet anyways, so he needed to know all he could. And besides, it seemed like the ship was going to take a while to get to the designated planet anyways, so he had some time to kill.

• • •

As he was nearing the end of his reading session, a new window popped up that had a message saying that the destination planet was reached, and the ship's orbital preparations were being made for when Rex wanted to beam down. He probably guessed that the ship had been flying for about a half and hour to forty five minuets. He felt plenty prepared for what he might encounter after reading Liax's notes on survival. His mindset was simple. Spawn down, get a little bit of wood, a little bit of stone, then make a pickax and an axe to get a lot of wood and stone with, and build a base of operations. From there he would explore the surface of the planet and begin his search for ores an the such underground. After going through the list he made in his head a few more times, the window flashed white, showing a changed message. It was now saying; '_Orbit Preparations complete. You many now use the teleporter_.' Rex closed this window and got out of the chair he was sitting in as he proceeded to head towards the teleporter room. Once he got there, he pressed the button that he could use to pick the location where he wanted the teleporter to beam down to. He made a selection and pressed the 'Teleport' button, which surrounded him in a white flash, that quickly faded to reveal a new landscape.

The surface with covered in lush, green, beautiful grass with spaced out trees there was were not as nearly close together as on the planet where Rex had met Maria and Liax. Back on that planet, the treetops formed a sea of green, with mountain islands sticking out of them. The sky was a beautiful shade of a paled sky-blue, with the sun just barely beginning it's ascent to the cloudless skies. Rex smiled, taking a deep breath of the fresh air of the new, yet familiar, landscape. He took out his matter manipulator and began to cut down trees at a pace a snail would laugh at him for. After what seemed like an eternity, the tree finally gave way and timbered to the ground, turning into small bits of unrefined wood, which Rex then opened his inventory to turn that unrefined wood into wood planks. From there, he created a crafting table and placed it, using his matter manipulator, where the tree Rex had just cut down had been. From there he returned to gather wood from one more tree, which was followed by a little bit of digging to get some stone, which took even longer than the wood, and returned back to the crafting table, He successfully crafted a Pickax, which he was pretty amazed by the fact that he crafted this just by putting some wood with some stone.

He returned to the spot where he found the first bit of stone and began to mine a tiny amount more. After obtaining a small amount of the rocky resource, he returned to his crafting table again, this time crafting an axe, which he tried out on the trees surrounding him. The gargantuan difference between the efficiency of the matter manipulator, and his axe and pickax almost made him want to burst into tears of joy. But even he thought that would be a bit overkill for something as simple as a tool. From here he set to work, gathering mass amounts of stone and wood. He used the pickax the level out a place for a base of operations, while he used his axe to gather more wood that he could use to build his house, as well as some plant fiber, as the book Liax gave him talked about making bandages for healing and that it's also a material that's used to make bows. After finally clearing out a spot to make the base, he got to work building his temporary home. He decided on three floors above-ground and one or two underground, since the Liax's notebook explained chests and how he could find them and take them and use them for his own storage.

Rex made the house out of wood with a stone rooftop, and stone storage rooms as well. He wanted windows, but in order for him to get those, he would need sand. So that would require him to go to the desert planet, so he decided to wait until the house was completely finished. On the second floor, he placed a crafting table, a furnace, and a campfire. The later of the objects was placed on top of the crafting table. The third floor was empty, and he thought of using it as living quarters. But before he could set to work with crafting the furniture items, he realized something.

There weren't any lights.

Rex face clawed, obviously displeased with the fact that another crucial observation had passed his notice, completely undetected. He ran outside to see the sun setting rapidly, and made a sort of low growl. It was another timed challenge, and this one didn't seem as simple as the last one. He took off running, pickax in hand, and began to swing at the ground, taking off just a few blocks at a time. This was no time to go on a full-out mining expedition, unless he wanted to die in a mineshaft. After a while of running around aimlessly, he had finally found what he was looking for. A coal deposit, and a fairly big one at that. He began to mine it, when he heard some creature's growls in the distance, which drove him to mine faster than he already was. After the last of the coal found their way into Rex's bag, he jumped out of the little hole he dug, sword in hand. Good thing he did too, as a creature, that's details were indescribable in the darkness of the night, had leapt towards him. Rex slashed horizontally, effectively cutting the creature in two. It fell on the ground, bursting into small voxel-shaped cubes which, upon inspection, were called pixels. Apparently they served as a currency, but he had no time to ponder on what he could buy, as he could hear the rapid approach of more creatures that Rex assumed didn't want to have a chat with him. He made his journey back to his house as short as possible, moreover running away from monsters rather than fighting them.

He finally got to his house, closing the door quickly behind him, and began using his matter manipulator to place lights all over the house. He would make the spacing proportionate later. His breathing was heavy, as he got slashed a few times before making it back to the house. At least he was still in one piece. He walked up the staircase that he had made to the other floor, the 'crafting floor,' and created some chairs, tables, and a bed at the crafting table. First he went around the house, correcting his randomized placement of torches to make them proportionate and make them actually look nice. Then he went ahead and placed a table and a few chairs to make a makeshift dinner table. Why he made more than one chair despite the fact that he was alone was a mystery to even him. After that, he went up to the top floor, the bedroom, and placed the bed. Liax's book had told Rex about the 'magical' qualities of beds, and how they slowly regenerated health. It had been a long day and he was tired, so he thought about turning in for the night. Just before he could get to that, someone or something rapidly banged on the door. Rex ran down the two sets of stairs, and came to the door, sword in hand. He flicked the door open and got in his fighting position, but instead came face to face with a Hylotl.

The Hylotl looked frightened, and a bit traumatized. It was covered in scratches and bruises and cuts, but just stood there in the door, staring at Rex. Then he remembered how Liax had told him about the conflict between Florans and the Hylotl, and Rex remembered he was a Floran. But he didn't want the fish-person to die, so he dropped his sword and gestured for the Hylotl to come inside. As it did, Rex quickly shut the door as another creature that Rex thought similar to the one that tried to leap at him before attempted to run through the door to get to them. He could hear heavy breathing behind him and turned around to see the Hylotl sitting on the ground, head to it's knees and hugging it's ankles. Rex felt a bit awkward about letting a random stranger in his house, be he was to kind to say no. Even if it would try to kill him in his sleep.

"Thanks…" The Hylotl managed to say in her long slur of heavy breathing. Well, Rex assumed it was a female because, now that he thought about it, she had a pink/purple Kimono, and the voice sounded feminine. She didn't make eye contact with Rex thought.

"No problem," Rex replied, sounding as upbeat as possible.

The Hylotl managed to stand. Her heaving breathing was reduced to a light strand of inhaling and exhaling. Looking at him, she managed a very forced smile, and extended out her hand. "My name is Alicia."

Rex shook it. "My name is Rex, nice to meet you Alicia." He replied, which earned a shocked look from Alicia. Rex slightly tilted his head, confused on why She looked at him like that. Then, suddenly, Liax's explanation of the different races came back to him. "Oh, right. Florans don't usually talk like this, do they?"

She shook her head, slowly.

"Well, there's always room for an exception. So, what can I do for you, Alicia?" Rex asked.

She sort-of turned a way, just a little. "W-well…" She stammered, obviously hinting at the fact that she didn't trust the Floran standing in front of her.

"Hmm?"

"…"

"Uhm… okay? Do you need a place to stay for the night or something?" Rex asked.

She looked up at him, nodding. Standing in the torchlight, Rex could see her a bit more clearly. She had the same fin position as Liax, but hers were purple. Her under-belly color was white, but the rest of her seemed to be just purple, save her three red eyes. She was also just a tiny bit shorter than Rex, and wore a necklace with a crystal carving in the shape of a water droplet. She wore a side-bag, similar to Rex's, with the symbols 女の子魚 on it. What did that mean again? girl fish?

"Alright, wait here just a second." Rex said, as he ran upstairs to split the bedroom in half, and crafted an extra bed to place in it. After he had done this, he came back down to where Alicia was waiting. Rex gestured her to follow him, and brought her upstairs to one of the two rooms. "You can sleep here tonight, if that's okay."

"Thanks…"

As Rex began to walk out of the room, Alicia sorta talked to him as he was walking away. "What happened…" She started, as Rex turned around, his attention grabbed. "Was that I was on a ship. It was breaking up and I needed to get back to my home planet. But the ships engines broke down above this planet, and I crash-landed. My job was to get minerals to create weapons and armor, but I couldn't find any, and I tried to make it back." She sighed. "I suppose it's for the best. The failure of my mission would have me exiled anyways…"

Rex smiled, realizing that he could be helpful. "You know…" He started. "I could help you out, if ya wanted."

"Y-you could? How?"

"Well… I have a ship. And I have mining materials, so I suppose I could help in your search for minerals."

Alecia stared at him for a bit, which made him feel like he said or did something wrong. Turns out he didn't though.

"You… would help me? A Floran helping a Hylotl?"

He shrugged. "I don't see why not. Besides, I like being a helpful person about 90% of the time."

"But… the war with Florans and the Hylotl…"

"Were you present, or even alive during the time of the war?"

She shook her head.

"Well neither was I. So as far as I'm concerned, I don't have to be enemies with anyone."

This was replied with a more honest of a smile from Alicia, as apposed to before. "You're right," She agreed. "So, you'll help me?"

Rex nodded. "But… can we start in the morning? I'm really tired…" He said, partially yawning.

She nodded and smiled. "Thank's, Rex."

"No problem." Rex said as he made his way to his own room. When he finally got there he fell on his bed, and that was it. He was probably already asleep before he even made contact with the comfortable, soft, bed.


	4. The Forth Stage

**_Chapter 4: A Generous Exploration_**

Rex woke up, feeling something had gone terribly wrong considering there was no voice commanding him to rise from his slumber. He decided not to dwell on that, and took it upon himself to set up mining supplies while Alicia was still sleeping. He couldn't help but to smile. He would be exploring below the surface! It could be an incredible adventure down there, not to mention the fact that, this time, the sun can't do anything to screw this up since, it was apparent, the sun seemed to hate him. He would also be adventuring with someone, and not just alone. He couldn't exactly do everything by himself forever, without eventually going crazy. It just wouldn't happen.

He made three stone pickaxes, one extra for Rex and two for Alicia just incase she didn't have any. He didn't have any food, but he could bring his hunting bow and get some meat while they're down there and they could cook it on a campfire. He also brought a crafting table, a furnace, and a campfire for the meat thing, obviously. He also crafted about, 80 or so torches, and put his flashlight in his bag as light sources. Rex was still stuck with the weapon that Liax gave him, as the notebook had said minerals, which he had none of, were required for the crafting of new weapons. He sighed, hoping that the Hylotl had some sort of weapon of her own. He also brought some wood, he felt it was necessary and he had a huge amount of the stuff, as well as an axe just incase of a giant strand of plant fiber.

After finishing up his inventory management, he walked over to the table set he had made and sat in a chair, dozing off a bit. What he dreamt about what something he didn't honestly expect. First off, he expected a nap, not to be asleep. Second, it was some sort of snake-like monster made of vapor. It was staring at him, and he was staring at it. It opened it's mouth, and the same cold, hard sound that came from the disembodied voice emitted from it.

_Hello, little Wolf-Human._

"Y-you?"

_Yes. Shocked to see me...?_

It made some sort of chilling chuckle, with a demonic smile. This triggered Rex to bare his fangs a bit and growl under his breath.

_You seem angered._

"Oh really? I didn't notice."

_Just remember I'm the only reason you're still alive._

"What?"

_The others all wanted you dead._

_...Oh, it seems your time left in this realm has dawned short._

"B-but I just got here! Who are 'the others?' Heck, who are you!?"

_A mere messenger…_

_Rex..._

_Rex.._

_Rex._

"Rex? Rex…? Are you okay?" Alicia was shaking him. He groaned a bit and slowly opened his eyes to see the purple Hylotl. "Rex… You're okay. What the heck was that? It's like you were drowning in air!"

"Wh-wha…?" Rex was a might bit confused.

"Y-you were shuttering and your breathing was stammered… Like something was choking you…"

He sat up and got out of the chair. He sighed and took a deep breath. "Yeah, ignore that. It's… er… fine."

"Alright…" Alicia replied, a face of worry still clearly visible.

"Anyways…" Rex started, attempting to sway off the topic. "I've got tools and stuff for mining. But first we need to know what we both have."

"I've got some torches and a matter manipulator." Alicia replied. "Not much I know…"

"No, that's good! How many torches?"

"23."

"Even better!" Rex replied, as he clasped his claws together. "Alright, here." He said as he passed her and axe, two pickaxes and 40 torches. She took them with a sort of confused and embarrassed look.

"You're giving all of this to me?"

"Uhm, yeah. I made a bunch extras of stuff so that we can both mine and place torches and the such. Now, only problem… I don't have any other weapons…"

"Dang it, so I'm going to be a burden then if you were to protect me at every monster encounter…"

"Well... you're right about one thing, I WOULD protect yo- wait... wait a minute! I have a bow. Can you use a bow?"

"Oh, uhm, I suppose... I was a pretty good archer back in my village."

Rex handed her the weapon, which she took acceptingly, and with a smile. "Thanks."

He nodded. "So… shall we get going, miss Alicia?"

She smiled and nodded.

• • •

They approached the mouth of a cave with pickaxes in hand. Rex was feeling rather exciting about the idea of exploring a danger-and-wonder filled cave, whilst Alicia was shaking uncontrollably in, what Rex assumed, was fear. He nodded to her, and she nodded back as he lead the way into the cave. Rex took role as the miner while Alicia placed lights as they went. Both were in charge of facing any enemies that happened to rear their ugly heads along the way. At first things were a tedious cycle, moving and placing torches periodically. A monster didn't even show up. Then they came to a split path, being able to take the left or right. Rex turned around to face Alicia, who looked at Rex, confused for a bit. Suddenly, she knew why he was looking at her.

"Ooohhh no. You keep leading. I'm going to get us lost."

Rex continued to stare at her with a bored expression.

"Rex, stop please. Just, you pick a direction…."

Still staring.

Alicia finally gave up after a bit, realizing that Rex's decision seemed to be final. She sighed. "We'll take the right path."

Rex bowed slightly and continued down the chosen path. They continued down the general path, breaking through the walls that blocked their path, and occasionally stopping to mine minerals. Rex was a bit worried, as there had been no monsters yet. Alicia could sense this worry, and she realized that he was right. Nothing had tried to kill either of them yet. Both of them silently agreed to raise their guard. As more choosable pathways stopped their progress, Rex allowed the judgement to be up the the purple Hylotl. They continued down the different pathways, continuing the cycle of path choosing and mineral gathering until they had finally come across a large, expansive pit. It seemed to go a ways down, but there was no way to tell for sure, seeing how neither of them had anything to throw down there to check. If they threw a torch, it would burn up before hitting the bottom, and the slightly couldn't reach that far.

His thought process as to how they were going to go about this was abruptly stopped when the platform under them was blasted away by some unknown force, plummeting them to the pit below. Things started to pick up pace, as Rex and Alicia rapidly placed torches around their current location in an attempt to quickly create some light to help them see if anything tried to attack them. They both drew their weapons, Rex his sword and Alicia her bow, and stood back-to-back in the center of the torchlight. Suddenly, Rex took note of a blue orb that slowly grew in size. He squinted at it a bit as it was growing, followed by his eyes widening and grabbing Alicia to the ground with him, narrowly avoiding the same blast that knocked them down to this pit in the first place.

They both quickly got to their feet, just in time to receive some light blue, six-legged feral creatures crawling towards them. Hearing their steps on the ground made Rex think of spiders and sent a bone-chilling vibe down his spine. Alicia looked around in an attempt to locate what had just tried to shoot them, and saw a blue orb that slowly grew in size. She took aim with her bow, and shot a fury of arrows at the blue-marked target, which caused the blue orb to disappear, followed by an explosion that temporarily lit up a bit more of the room, showing that there weren't any creatures hoarding there. She took this time to run over there and place some torches down so that they could see more of the current stage that was set for the current battle.

Meanwhile, Rex was fending off wave after wave of weird creepy-crawlies, slashes at a time. They bunched up tightly together, so that made horizontal slashes hit all of the monsters in one swipe. One lunged at Rex, which he easily sliced through, but was followed by another one that landed on his stomach and started scrapping at it with a surprising pace. An arrow came from some part of the room that nailed the creature clinging to Rex in the side, knocking it off and reducing it to pixels. More followed, which were quickly replied to by more arrows and the slashing of Rex's own weapon, which made short work of the remaining monsters. Alicia ran up to him, smiling and breathing heavily.

Rex looked up to see that most of the room had been lit up already, revealing mass amounts of plant fiber, ores, and even a small pond of water. "Perhaps we should set up here for a bit." He suggested.

Now that he mentioned it, Rex was right. Their tunneling expedition had been hours long, and they both had to admit the fighting and the jumping around and the mining and the walking on sore feet for hours accumulated to a mutual feeling of… tired. Alicia nodded in agreement, signifying that she would very much like to have some sort of rest point set up. With that, Rex got to work, picking up the spastically placed torches and spacing them out so it wasn't a waste, and they could still see the surrounding area. While Rex started mining the materials that were scattered within the walls of the cave, Alicia walked over to the small underground pond and sat on the edge, dipping her bare feet into the water.

She released a heavy sigh, and smiled. The purple Hylotl didn't know Rex for more than, maybe, a day, but she felt like she could already trust her life in his hands. She also didn't feel as tense. Before they entered the cave, she was shaking like crazy, thinking they were going to die in the cave. She had that same feeling when they feel down to their current location. _But, no. _She thought. _Rex and I took care of things, and we came out on top… _She felt pleased with herself. She even felt like she saved Rex's life, which added to her already joyful mood, feeling that she had done something useful. She could hear the sound of stone and ores being mined from behind her, and turned around to see that Rex was already almost finished with the collection of ores. As he finished, he walked to a location somewhere near the center of the room and got to work building a temporary base of operations.

For s temporary base, it sure was big. It had three floors, the first being the living room, the second being the bedroom, and the third being the crafting room. Torches were placed symmetrically on the walls, making it obvious that a sloppy torch placement would have set Rex off. The bedroom had two separate rooms, each with, simply, a bed and some lights. The top floor is where Rex was currently, smelting the ores into bars and crafting more torches and the such. Alicia was in the living room, sitting in a chair, humming a tune that she had learned from her village a while back. She put her foot on the table and used her knees to rock the chair back in forth slowly, being careful not to make it so that they fall over.

Rex came downstairs to the living room. "Well, we've got about 40 copper bars, 36 silver bars, and 53 iron bars. Oh, and about 80-something pieces of coal."

"Well.. that sounds like a lot. Is that a lot?" She asked, making it obvious she had no clue which amount was the worst of them all.

"Yes, actually. This is more than enough ore to craft the gear that I think you needed to get for your planet! All we need to do you now is… well… get to your planet. Shouldn't be too hard, considering you have it written down, I presume?"

She nodded, smiling.

"All right, well, I'm gonna take a nap, so… night Alicia. Er.. unless it's day… then… uhm…"

She giggled. "It's okay, Rex. I understand what you're trying to say. Have a good rest."

"You too."

• • •

Alicia yawned, feeling much less tired and sore, and much more energetic. She was a bit sad that her adventures with Rex were coming to an end soon, but she was going to be able to go home soon! Maybe she could even persuade him to visit the planet she was on every once and a while. Considering she was going out with another Hylotl, While she hadn't fallen for him (Well, at least not a whole lot), she probably would have, given the right circumstances. I mean, lets face it, no Floran in the village would go out on such a limb for her as to help her with an important task, risking their life in the process. Heck, hardly any male Hylotl wouldn't even set FOOT in a mine filled with monsters!

Not realize she was pondering this the whole entire time in her little bed, she got up quietly, just in case Rex was still sleeping. She poked her head through the door that lead into the house to make sure nothing had popped in to say 'Hello.' After deciding that the coast was clear, she stepped out and began to aimlessly walk around the room, thinking about Rex, her Hylotl friends, their adventure, how worried her parents probably were, and perhaps even the stories she would tell. While walking around she tripped over something that didn't feel quite…. 'rocky' like a rock usually did.

After falling on the ground, she dragged herself up and turned around to see something silver in material protruding from the ground in a sort of squarish shape. Alicia got to work, slowly, and quietly, mining around the silver object. As she finally got it uncovered, she realized it was some sort of control panel with a single button in it. She picked it up out of the hole it was in with a mass amount of effort, and placed it on the ground near her. Alicia's curiosity got the immediate best of her, and she pressed the button with very little hesitation.

As she did so, the ground began to shake violently. _Well, so much for letting Rex sleep some more. _Then the wall of stone before her slowly shifted and started to pull apart. Chips of the stone started falling to reveal a metallic gate that continued to open at a very, very slow rate. The gate had finally settled and all movement ceased, save the incredibly rapid beat of Alicia's heart. It seemed to be some sort of laboratory, judging by the vials of green, red and blue liquid that were spread out across the tabletops. She walked in a little bit to view the broken and damaged lights that dimly flickered, offering no source of light whatsoever. Suddenly footsteps could be heard, and she turned around to see Rex in a wide-eyed trance.

He looked around the room in awe and wonder, realizing that the corridor that they were standing in went a fair ways down, being there was potentially a lot here to explore "How did you find THIS place? Randomly stumble across a giant friggin' metal door or something?"

"Actually, there was a giant metal BOX with a button inside that opened the giant metal door." She replied, smiling.

"Well… at any rate… WOW! Before we head up, do you want to explore this last place?"

"Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Who know's what we may find in here?"

"Well, if I think it looks cool, I'm going to be taking with me to put in my ship. I've got nothing in there."

"Fair enough."

And with that, Rex took out his flashlight and the two began their forward march into the giant laboratory. The walls were lined with sliding doors that actually worked and opened up whenever Rex or Alicia got near, or were jammed and didn't move at all. They continued into the different opened rooms, collecting the cool high-tech looking chests that were scattered in there. They found a weapon with strange abilities in one of the chests and gave it to Alicia, so that she had some sort of melee weapon for usage, and not just a bow. As their little journey continued, they came across masses of Apex posters and labs with vials of blue and red that Rex took along with him. There were also a lot of lab tables, which Rex ALSO took, that had a lot of papers spanning the tables. He even found a single bomb.

As they continued to look at the papers, they both noticed that it talked about a 'dark creature' coming in and killing and eating everybody. How reassuring. Well, at least they now knew what happened. as they walked to the final door, a sound, like hissing of some sort, could be heard on the other side of the door. The two looked at each other, both wearing faces of both concern and curiosity. They both put on serious faces and nodded, walking into the room. What they came to see, however, wasn't exactly the most expected thing to see in the world.

There, on the floor, balled up in a sort of a fetal position…

Facing their general direction.

Lay a floran.

Rex's heart didn't feel like beating after seeing this.

It's eyes were a shade of sinister red, and it's flower skin was a mix of blue and purple. Rex and Alicia looked at each other, both worried and disgusted, before looking back at the floran. They both stepped back by one step, which made the floran stop moving, and look up at them. At first the two sighed, thinking it wasn't going to do anything. That was BEFORE the floran made a high-pitched hiss that almost made the two go deaf. Shortly after, the floran gave chase, running after them on all fours, which seemed to be an insane amount faster than Rex and Alicia could ever hope to move, who were each running on two. That's when Rex remembered something and dug in his bag for what he was searching for.

He pulled out the bomb, and threw it at the floran, just barely missing it. The Floran, however, did exactly as Rex has planned. It stopped it's pursuit of Rex and Alicia and chased the explosive. Thank gods curiosity was a thing. As they ran out the metal door, the bomb exploded, and the Floran began to retarget the Hylotl and the other Floran after swiftly jumping out of the way of the bomb radius. "Closer the door!" Rex yelled as Alicia ran over and pressed the button, beginning the painfully slow door closing process.

"Come ooonnnn…." Alicia whispered in an attempt to make it move faster.

Then, Rex ran up to the door and started helping with it's advancement, and Alicia helped with the other side, barely closing it before the dark floran could make it to them. They were both breathing heavily, looking at each other. Then they broke out, laughing.


	5. The Fifth Stage

**_Chapter 5: The dangers of Science_**

Alicia sat there near the small pool with her feet in the water, her heart still beating at a million miles per hour. The 'Dark Floran' dominated any other thoughts she attempted to think of. Then she decided that, seeing how the topic in her head was never going to change, she should think about… 'it.' Alicia never even caught if it was a boy or a girl. Then again, if she got too close to it to try to find out, it would rip her in two, maybe three. She couldn't help but to think of Rex though, as an attempt to not think about the Floran. Her notability and interest in the Blue-haired, literate Floran made it easy to disregard the Dark Floran. Rex had gone back to the makeshift house to pick up the campfire and and the different crating stations that were in there, but he would leave the building itself, as it made a pretty good underground base of operation.

Alicia couldn't help but to think about Rex a bit more… romantically, than normal, which she thought was a bit weird. She had to admit, he had a sort of irresistible charm about him. And even though they hadn't known each other for the LONGEST time, two days tops maybe, she still felt that they were really close friends. Alicia shook her head, she already had a boyfriend. And a bunch of other guys were after her at the moment anyways, so now wasn't the time to think about that. Still, the thought of Rex and Her being together didn't exactly go away, it wasn't even regressed. She was still fully aware that she was think about them being together. The thought, while strong and seemingly invincible, was quickly over powered when a harsh bang hit the door, making an ear-splitting, metallic ring. She looked over to it to see that a GIANT dent had been made in the door separating them from the Dark Floran.

Rex had apparently heard this, and came out of the door. He put the last of the crafting items into his bag and walked over to where Alicia was. She pointed at the now-dented wall, eyes widened, and looked at Rex, fright clearly spanning her face. He looked at her for a bit, before turning to see what she was pointing at. His eyes widened and he took a small step back, which seemed to be replied to by another bang on the door near the same spot, creating a small hole in the door. Hissing and growling and mumbling could be heard on the other side of the metallic wall, and the two looked at each other, mouthing the same word in unison.

_Floran._

Alicia stood up and, alongside Rex, ran to the part of the room that they fell down when they first came into the clearing that they currently occupied. He quickly made a makeshift stairway out of stone using his matter manipulator. They climbed the staircase just in time to witness the door to the lab being completely demolished by the Dark Floran. As it walked through the rubble that use to be the metallic wall separating them and it, the Floran began to scan the room looking for, what Rex assumed, them. Turns out he was right, as the Floran looked over in their direction and let out a surprisingly loud hiss-roar, which was followed by it beginning to climb the staircase in pursuit. The two screeched a bit, and Rex spastically placed cobblestone in the path. He then grabbed Alicia's hand, and ushered her to run up the path they took from the surface. She blushed a bit before following.

The two ran as fast as they could, periodically stopping to place more stone in the way, as they assumed that if it could break metal, it could break stone, but it would still halt SOME sort of advancement. That, and they heard hissing and growling behind them. Things were going pretty smoothly until monsters that looked very similar to the ones from the cave clearing that they took over started littering the cave.

"Oh, NOW they show up!?" Rex muttered in slight anger, pulling out his sword.

Alicia pulled out her bow and began to shoot the father away monsters, while Rex took care of the closer ones with his ranged attacks. They were taking very little damage from the creatures, and they thought that they were doing pretty well, pace-wise. Then again, they had also forgotten that they were being chased by a murderous flower.

The Dark Floran was now visible and running towards the two at a scary pace. Alicia took out her matter manipulator and placed as many layers of stone as she could, and turned back around to help Rex with the fighting. Turns out Rex took out the rest of the creatures that were currently visible, and was waiting for her at a turn, matter manipulator in hand. As she approached, he placed more stone, sealing off even more of the cave, putting a bigger wall between them and the Floran. From there they ran, not bothering to stop to place stone behind them, as that would take up too much time. There were more creatures on the way up, but were easily dealt with with a running slash that didn't halt or slow their progress.

The cave entrance was visible now, and the two couldn't help but to smile. They ran outside, but their smiles faded quickly. Rex face clawed and Alicia shook in fear a bit. It was night time. So much for the sun not being able to screw things up. They looked back in the cave to see the floran running towards them on all fours, keeping a rapidly increasing speed. The two took off running again, Alicia screaming and Rex franticly looking around to view the masses of approaching monsters. They ran through the forest, ducking and weaving through and over trees and bushes, rocks and curving around the mountains. It didn't do them much good though, as the house was still a ways off and the monsters were curving them in different paths in order to avoid them. Not to mention the rapidly gaining Floran.

_Say it._

The disembodied voiced called to him, making Rex stop running. The caused Alicia to stop as well, turning to face him. "…Rex?" She asked, unsure as to why he stopped. He didn't reply, which made her worry quite a bit, as monsters slowly advanced on them. The Floran wasn't being so subtle, however, and ran at them, full throttle. "R-Rex! We have to move!"

"…Tel…"

"…Rex?"

"…e…"

"Rex!" At this point she was stifling tears, grabbing Rex's hand. This is where she would die.

"…Port."

Suddenly a red light engulfed them both, making it impossible to see each other, which quickly transitioned to a white light, then another red light, and finally they could see again. They were standing on the teleporter of Rex's ship.

Alicia was shaking like crazy, gripping Rex's hand like it was the only thing keeping her alive. She walked closer to him, and embraced him in a hug, sobbing all the while. This snapped Rex back to reality, and looked around, realizing he was on his ship. Then he looked down a bit to the hylotl hugging him. He couldn't help but to smile. "Uh, you okay, miss Alicia?" He asked.

She looked up at him, teary eyes and all. "I- I thought w-w-we were going to d-die down there…" She somehow managed to say in her seemingly endless waterfall of tears.

He put his arm on her shoulder. "Well, we're fine now, aren't we?" He said, casually.

This earned a little giggle from Alicia, followed by the ending of her crying session. She sniffed, wiping some of the water from her eyes, and stood straight up, letting go of him. Then she stared at him, looking really confused. "Why d-didn't you use that b-before?" She asked, still sniffing, but as little as she could.

"Didn't know I COULD use it." He replied, simply.

She smiled.

• • •

Rex was sitting in the Pilots chair, putting his feet up on the control panel, and placing his hands behind his head. "So, what now? Star-wards to your home planet then?" He asked the purple Hylotl, who was standing next to him.

"Yeah, I guess so…" Alicia replied, obviously sad by the fact that this was about to be goodbye. "Oh, right." She reached into her bag and pulled out some of the mineral bars that they had created down in the mine. "Here," She said, holding them out for Rex to take. He sat up in his chair, looking at the bars, confused.

"But… don't you need these?" He asked.

"Yeah… but… you risked your life to help me out. And I wouldn't have been able to get any of this without you. Besides, you'll need ores eventually."

He accepted the mineral bars and placed them in his bag. He looked back up at her and smiled. "Thanks." He said. "So, you ready to head home?"

She nodded, smiling. Alicia handed Rex a hologram-board looking object with an X coordinate and a Y coordinate written on it. He accepted it and typed it into the computer, making sure he kept note of their current coordinates, as he wanted to come back there after dropping Alicia off.

The ship whirred to life after inputting the coordinates. The DNA scan authentication came down and scanned Rex, making sure it was the pilot controlling the ship, and not some sort of ship stealer. The fuel cost was, as expected, 200, which brought Rex down to 1600. The window that contained the ship's run data opened up which Rex left opened, as he walked into the main part of the ship for some redecorating. Alicia stood there, looking out the window closest to the cockpit in awe as he was placing the lab tables and vials that he… 'borrowed,' from the abandoned laboratory.

After placing a little lab station, Rex joined Alicia at the window. He looked at all the planets and stars and asteroids and moons that passed them by. "You know…" Alicia started, followed by Rex's eyes looking in her direction. "I don't think I'll ever get old of this. Stars and planets flying by, unexplored containing many different wonders and secrets." She looked at Rex. "Even though I won't be flying a ship any time soon, I expect you to visit sometimes and tell me stories."

Rex smiled. "Of course! Just… uh… other Hylotl's don't know that I'm… well… yeah."

"Oh, right. Well, I can attempt to persuade them, maybe?"

Rex shrugged. "Worth a shot."

She smiled, as the ship made a very quite hissing noise, that only Rex could probably hear because of his wolf-ears, signifying that the approaching planet is near. This was confirmed by a window that popped up, saying that the teleporter was able to send them down to the planet below. The Rex and Alicia nodded at each other, and Rex stuck out his hand. Alicia shook it, smiling all the while. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Rex."

"The pleasure was all mine, Miss Alicia."

Then Alicia grabbed his hand tighter, and dragged him into a hug.

"Bye, Rex. Hey, look, I have something cool to tell everybody in the village that no one else could ever top."

"Dude, yeah! You could let someone have their fun with a story all about them, and then walk up to them and tell them, 'Well I stared death in the face, and lived,' and walk away! They won't even be able to argue anymore."

Alicia giggled.

"Bye, Alicia. I'll see you around."

She let go of the hug and walked over to the teleporter, activating it. As she was being drawn out of the ship through the warp effects of the teleporter, she waved one last time. And, as the light of the teleporter almost engulfed her, she yelled to Rex, hoping he would hear; "Oh! And one more thing! Ships have a voice control!"

"What?"

And just like that, she was gone. Rex sighed, realizing his adventures with the Hylotl had come to an end. He was still perplexed about the voice control thing, though. He sat in the pilot's chair and put his feet back up on the control panel, and putting his hand behind his back. He decided to give the voice thing a try, since there wasn't any reason not to try it. "Star map, open." Suddenly the area in front of him was occupied by a giant map of Solar Systems that he could explore. This amazed Rex as convenient. He supposed that Alicia learned about this from her ship. He attempted to try another command. "Coordinates, X, enter, 8913345." As he said this, the spaces in the x coordinate box in the star map input filled with the vocalized words. "Y, enter, 9132561." And the same thing happened as it did with the X. "Launch."

The ship whirred to life and, again, opened a page with ship data. He got up and walked out of the cockpit, over to one of the windows, and began to stare out of it, viewing the passing stars and planets and the such. He now planned on returning to the planet he was just at to do something with the ores that he had. But more importantly, he wanted to investigate the Dark Floran, It was clearly some science experiment gone wrong. Rex walked over to the small lab setup he had, sat in the chair, put his feet on the table, and took a nap.

• • •

Rex walked through the door to his base of operations to see that everything was exactly as he had left it. He went upstairs to the crafting room and placed a newly crafted anvil on the ground and got to work crafting a shield and a one-handed sword so that he could defend and counter attacks. Besides, a data analysis confirmed that it was stronger than the weapon that Liax had given him. He also made a better pickax, a copper one, but decided to save the rest of the bars, since he took note of an item, the Distress Beacon, that he thought might be important. He didn't know why, he just had a feeling.

As he was doing this, Rex heard some sort of scratching on the door. This paralyzed him completely. He didn't know for sure, but it was possible that it was the Floran. Thinking about it, it would be kinda odd for it to just be checking the house out now, as soon as he beamed down to the planet. He thought it could have been checked multiple times, but he would expect claw marks somewhere. After a bit, he just ignored it, thinking it was a monster. And monsters can't open doors.

This logic was, however, flawed very quickly when he heard the shattering of wood downstairs, followed by hissing and growling. Rex sorta fell to his feet when the shattering occurred, being caught completely off guard. He quickly got to his feet and rushed downstairs in time to see the dark floran crawling through what use to be a doorway on all fours. It seemed like it didn't know Rex was there for a bit, but stared at him shortly after, obviously aware of his presence.

Close up and in the torchlight, Rex could see more of the Dark Floran. It was a fair amount taller than him, maybe it was about 20, 21. Its skin color was a darkish purple and its leaves and flowers and the such, including its hair, were all a shade of black. Its eyes were red with anger, emitting a faint glow that seemed to paralyze Rex in his tracks. The Floran was wearing a very tattered and torn lab coat with some shorts, which actually, in Rex's opinion, looked pretty cool. He also noted that it was a male, so that's a thing. However, he studied the Floran's appearance a bit too long, as it was already running towards him, growling and baring its sharp teeth. There was little time to react, but it was still time, nonetheless.

Rex was able to roll to the left, just in time to evade the Floran's leap. It became a bittersweet action when he rolled into the walls of the house. It wasn't exactly the biggest battle arena. Rex got to his feet, groggily, pulling out his new sword and shield, followed by getting in a ready stance. The floran ran for him, which ended in it smashing its head on his shield. The caused the floran to fall backwards in pain, clenching it's head. Rex took this opportunity to slash at it, which may have either been what the floran was waiting for, or it recovered at that exact moment, because it grabbed Rex's blade, flipping him upside down and releasing the sword from his grasp.

The Floran flipped the blade so that the handle was in it's hand, and held the weapon's tip above Rex's chest. Just then, before it attacked, Rex could hear voices, which stunned him more than the Blade did. The other Floran must have heard it too, as its movements ceased, almost instantly. The voices drew nearer. "I saw it go this way!" Rex heard one say. "Into the house with the… broken… doorway."

"He must have already left here." Another said. "The house owner must be dead. Maybe we could find some scratches and calculate when the Experiment was last here, and where he was headed."

"Good idea, AxepII." Another complimented.

The Floran looked at Rex with worry, allowing him to get up. Sudden generosity. He saw where this was going, and looked at the Floran with unamused eyes. And to even confirm the fact that Rex knew where this was going, the Floran growled 'help.' Rex sighed, face clawing at how wrong these circumstances were.

"Fine…." Rex agreed, looking slightly irritated. "But you're going to have to hear me rant as to why I shouldn't agree to this, alright?"

The Floran nodded, and Rex dragged him upstairs to the top floor, and used the matter manipulator to place some blocks around them in a way that made it look like that was how it was suppose to look. Once inside, the Floran was clawing at the sides, sort of hypnotically. Rex snapped to get it's attention, and shushed him as he put his wolf ears to the ground. The Floran stood there, twitching and moving constantly. Rex sighed, keeping his ears to the floor. He could faintly make out a conversation.

"These claw marks are dangerously fresh." One voice stated.

"Yes, almost as if it just left." Another said.

Rex stiffened a bit, realizing that this could be put to their advantage. He began to mine out the wall separating them from the rest of the house quietly. As he finished this, he looked back at the Floran that was shaking with uncontrollable fear in the corner. "Stay here." He commanded quietly as he blocked off the wall again. Rex walked downstairs, putting away anything that he had in his hands, and pulled out some wood so that it looked like he was going over to fix the broken doorway in his house.

He walked to the ground floor of the house to see three humanoids in lab coats and glasses scouting around the room. Their faces had fur on them, and they looked kinda ape-like. Rex assumed that these were people from the Apex race. "Uhm… hi?" Rex asked, trying to look confused as to why they were in his house.

The three stared at him for a bit, obviously shocked to see that he's still alive. "S-sorry." One of them finally replied.

"We thought that the owner of this house was deceased." Another said.

"Well, I'm still alive and the owner of the house, so I guess that means you were wrong, weren't you?" Rex replied, sorta stay-off-my-lawn-you-kidsish. However, he must have said something wrong, or they took offense to that or something, because after he said this, they stared at him, wide-eyed. Then he remembered that he was a Floran. They're suppose to have grammar issues.

They shook their heads to snap back to reality, and bowed. "We're sorry to have disturbed you, but have you seen a black and purple Floran running around at all?"

"Well, I DO think that's who... er... WHAT, broke my door. But, I didn't see any details."

"Alright, thank you." And with that, the three of them walked out of the hole in the wall, and Rex could see them beam up to their ship.

He took out his matter manipulator and replaced the wood and door that were broken when the other Floran decided to drop by and say hi. He sighed, and walked back up to where he was hiding the floran, and broke the wood around him. The Floran was still shuddering like crazy, and had his head to his knees, and wrapped his arms around his legs. "Okay," Rex reassured. "Their gone."

It looked up at him, terrified. "H-help… Malix…" it growled.

"Malix? Is that your name?" Rex asked, kinda freaked out about this.

Malix nodded.

"I'm Rex, and, uhm… You're asking for help after trying to kill me which is kinda… well… odd."

"Malix… sssorry…" He replied. "Malix… Human… Floran… Sssavage…"

Rex pondered this for a second as Malix got up, then he figured it out.

"Wait… are you saying… that you were a Human that turned into a very hostile Floran savage?"

He nodded again, which sorta made Rex look at him in a different light. "Wait… then who were those people?"

"Experiment… on… Malix… turn… into… Floran… Sssavage…"

"Th-they did?"

Malix nodded.

"Is there any way to turn you back?"

"Find… Machine… Apex… Planet… Reverssssse…" Malix said, looking fairly sad and hopeless.

"What's wrong now?" Rex asked, kind of annoyed by the different moods this guy shifted into.

"Ssstuck… as… Floran… forever…"

Rex smiled, taking this opportunity to grab Malix's arm. This made him look a bit confused, and sort of scared too. Rex took note of this, and replied to this. "Oh, don't be so confused, Malix. We've got to hurry if we're going to follow the Apex ship."

Despite this, Malix was still looking a bit confused, so Rex dragged him outside, under the sun. "We're making you a human again." And this surprised him a bit.

"How…?" Malix asked.

"You'll see," Rex replied, and looked up to the skies. "Teleport!"

And with that, a red and white light engulfed the both of them.


	6. The Sixth Stage

**_Chapter 6: Sorry about the ship._**

The ship in front of them hadn't seemed to notice their presence which was good, of course, but they weren't moving. At all. Rex was getting a bit restless due to the fact that he wasn't really that good at this whole 'patient' thing, and the plan of waiting for the apex to lead them back to their planet for updated reports and whatnot was taking waaaay longer than he had wished. Malix, however, didn't seem at all bothered by this fact, which is partially why Rex decided to stay anyways. A calm Malix, is a happy Malix, after all. But this really was taking forever, so Rex turned to the Floran that was sitting at the 'lab station' with it's feet propped up on the table, looking up at the lights on the ceiling, tiredly. He wanted to make a conversation with him, but the Floran was obviously very sleepy.

"You know, you can go to sleep if you want, Malix." Rex suggested, getting his attention. "It looks like we're going to be stuck here for a while, and it's pretty obvious that you're tired."

Malix smiled, taking this opportunity to letting himself lose the war between himself and sleep, and closed his eyes. Rex couldn't help but smile at how peaceful he was. He turned back around in his chair, and put his feet up on the control panel, ending in a similar pose to Malix. Now that he had some time to his thoughts, he started to ponder things. Rex WAS on a SPACESHIP, after all, in space, where he could go on thousands of billions of adventures! He was also turned into some sort of creature called a Floran, and he's been helping people left and right, even though he had no idea if any of them were going to backstab them or not. I guess it was a similar story with Maria the avian, and Liax the hylotl too, wasn't it? They only met for a little bit, and they already went ahead to getting Rex some starter supplies and his OWN SHIP. That is such a considerate thing to do. Random act of kindness can be random, And that was VERY random.

However, he also had to weigh this alongside the negatives. He had no idea where he was in terms of, galaxy, universe, heck, even reality! There seemed to be a reoccurring theme of small civilizations and monsters scattered throughout the galaxy, er… reality… whatever one will call it. He also had no idea what or who turned him into a Floran and sent him to this universe, meaning he had no idea to change back and return to his own universe, which he might freak out about later. Another thought popped into his head, and it seemed to be the most stressful one of them all. He had no idea how his friends were doing, and he had no way of contacting them. They could be in this universe too, or back in the universe they know… It was all a massive headache.

Rex took a deep breath, in an attempt to calm down. _One thing at a time… _He thought to himself, as he sat up in his chair just in time to see the thrusters on the ship ahead of them began to pulsate. Rex's eyes widened, and he opened the control configuration window panel, setting the ship to manual control. A set of controls then appeared, which served as the ships manual navigational device. On the controls lay an instruction manual that he had no time to read, and grabbed what looked like the steering wheel, pulling the thruster and engine activation levers (or, at least what he assumed to be the activation levers), and a window popped up to his side, containing information about the ship. This time, however, there wasn't a giant log of data, only standard stuff like his speed and the such, which was something he found useful.

The ship ahead of them took off, and so Rex put his foot on the peddle, snapping the ship forward at speeds that put the fastest flying cars from his planet to shame. He could still manage to see, and didn't find this speed to feel as fast as he thought it would feel; there wasn't even any rumbling sensible from the interior of the ship! This made it much easier to keep up with the ship ahead of him and to make sure that his vision wouldn't blur and the wouldn't… er… crash… It was basically smooth sailing until the ship did a really swift 180 degree turn, and ended in a position facing Rex's ship. He suppose they noticed that he was following them. The apex that was visibly piloting the ship could be seen through the cockpit window, staring at Rex was a very disapproving face. He then watched as the apex walked away from the control panel, which made him worry a bit, and he decided to wake up Malix.

Rex walked over to where Malix was resting and began to shake him a little bit. This quickly woke him up, which wasn't expected, and he hopped to his feet, looking around like something was wrong. When Malix noticed that nothing was out of the ordinary, he looked down at Rex, confused. "There…?" He asked, wondering why he was awoken.

"No… uhm… The Apex ship we were following turned around and saw us." Rex replied.

This also made him a bit worried, seeing how Malix's eyes widened as he faced the direction of the teleporter room, seemingly stuck in a trance. "Come…" He said, hypnotically.

"What? What do you mean come?" Rex asked. Now HE was the one confused, but his questions were quickly answered as the teleporter lit up a bright white-read, with a figure taking form on top of it.

As the light from the portal faded, it released an Apex, covered in armor and armed with a very sharp, multi-tipped sword and shield in it's grasp. It's gaze quickly shifted from Rex to Malix, and it's eyes widened as it did so. A com-unit was obtained from it's pocket, and bringing it up the Apex's mouth, it began to speak. "The Floran piloting the ship that has been following us has experiment FL-H14 aboard. What are procedures?"

After a bit of the Apex nodding, ending in 'I understand,' it put the com-unit back in it's pocket, and looked at Rex. "Have you followed us to return our Experiment?" It asked.

Rex shook his head, pulling out his shield and sword in preparation for combat. This was quickly replied by the shaking of the Apex's head, as it chuckled quietly. Rex and Malix both wondered why, until their curiosity was quickly answered by two more figures beaming to Rex's ship, shortly after revealing two more Apex, both in the same armor as the first one, but with one carrying a spear and another a gun. Malix freaked out a bit, and Rex dug into his bag and tossed the panicked Floran the sword and shield he was equipped with, as he pulled out the blade given to him by Liax. He had a feeling Malix would need a bit more defense than he did.

Things began with a jumpstart as the Apex armed with the spear jabbed at Malix, who had stopped panicking long enough to grab the sword and shield, just in time to use them to block the oncoming spear tip. From here, at least for Malix, it was a steady cycle of blocking and countering. As for Rex, well, let's just say he regretted giving up his shield and lighter sword. His blade clashed with the Apex's countless times, with the armed ape being able to land several successful blows to Rex's sides and chest, mercilessly ripping his clothing, and, more importantly, his skin. Malix looked over at him, as Rex did the same, nodding in a silent agreement. The Floran with just the sword rolled to his left, stopping in front of the speared Apex, and the Floran with the defense ran over to intercept the Apex with a similar weapon equip.

Weapons clashed, again, but this time Rex was able to successfully dance around the spear tip without being jabbed. Occasionally, opportunities would arise where he could land hits on the opposing force, which he took up almost as soon as they appeared. Malix was doing fine as well, the shield that the Apex was holding had been knocked out go his hand, forcing him to operate with just a sword, against an enemy with both a sword and a shield. Things were going perfectly fine at this rate, until the Apex closest to the teleporter cocked his gun. Its first target, naturally, was the enemy lacking a shield to defend itself, so he took aim at Rex, who was too busy paying attention to his current attacker to notice. The aim was taken, and the trigger had been pulled, releasing a stream of energy from the ranged weapon, making a beeline towards Rex. The Apex he was fighting knew this plan, and jumped out of the way just in time for Rex to be blasted in the chest with the concentrated energy projectile, being knocked on his back, unconscience.

Malix witnessed this as he knocked the blade out of the Apex who he was facing's hand, followed by bashing him in the side of the head with his sword, knocking him out. He then directed his attention to the Apex with the spear that was standing over Rex with the spear poised and ready to stab through his heart, throwing his shield at the sharp-tipped weapon, successfully knocking it out of his hand. There was a loss of a defensive object, but now the Apex was to busy running to go pick up his dropped weapon to notice Malix put Rex into the cockpit and close the door. It was now two against one, but the Floran paid attention to both of his opponents, so that he wouldn't suffer the same fate as his blue-haired friend.

The fight was continued as the Apex had regained his spear, and the other took aim at his new target, Malix. Agility was key here, and this was something he knew, as the Floran donned a different fighting pose in a way where his sword would balance with the rest of his body, shortly followed by the first jab of the Spear. This was danced around swiftly with Malix successfully being able to get behind the Spear-Apex, banging his head, forcing him to drop on the floor, unconscience. This only left the two, one wielding a melee weapon, and another a ranged one. After taking out the first one quickly, just by spinning around him, Malix was certain this would be a swift battle, which, of course, was not the case.

The Apex dropped his gun and pulled two out from the giant pockets on his side, holding them in a position where each gun barrel was aimed at the head of their opposer. Malix freaked out a bit as the bullets began to fire at a very rapid speed, some skimming his face, other being deflected by his Sword. A few even pierced his stomach in places that, while excruciatingly painful, didn't prove fatal, but severely hindered his movement. The Stream of bullets stopped and Malix was able to glimpse the armored ape reloading his weapons, and he realized that there was a small window of opportunity here. He rolled over to the downed Apex that had the sword and shield, picking up the two items in time for the next wave of projectiles.

He pulled the shield up, defensively, slowly walking in the direction of the ape, sustaining a mass decrease in the amount of damage he had taken when blocking with just the sword. Turns out Apex's ARE smart, because he stopped using his guns and instead jumped over Malix, landing over to the Apex with the spear, grabbing the sharp-tipped weapon and turning to face his opponent. But then a sudden realization of pleasure spread across Malix's face, as he stepped back slowly to the teleporter, with the Apex walking slowly towards him. Just as the ape got close enough to jab at the Floran, Malix dropped his shield and sword to reveal a charged gun, the same one used to knock out Rex, poised and aimed at the ape's chest.

He couldn't help but to smile. "…Bye."

The Apex's eyes widened with fear as the trigger was pulled, blasting it to the other side of the ship, red strands of light flying everywhere. The ape landed on it's back, motionless and, seemingly, not breathing. Then it did something unexpected, it began to disintegrate into data, it's body revealing itself to be an empty shell and nothing more. As the last of the Apex vanished, painful groaning could be heard from behind the doors of the cockpit, snapping Malix's attention away from the spot on the floor of the ship where the ape creature once lay. He shifted his gaze to the entrance to the cockpit, walking over to it swiftly. The Apex surrounding him were only unconscience, and who knows how much longer they'll stay that way before trying to kill them again. Unfortunately, Malix suffered a fair amount too many jabs, slashes, and bullets, and their combined pain forced him to collapse on the ground, cringing in pain. He passed out shortly after.

• • •

Rex woke up in the Pilot Seat of his ship, clenching the burnt spot on his chest in pain. He forced himself to his feet, feeling that if he were to fall asleep or pass out again, there wouldn't be any waking up. His head was throbbing painfully, and parts of his sides were morbidly sliced open. Opening to door to the cockpit, Rex came to a strange sight that snapped him back to reality. Weapons and guns were scattered across the floor, two Apex were lying on the ground, breathing, but obviously unconscience. Malix was on the ground too, scratch marks and bullets visible in his skin, which worried Rex, even though the Floran was still clearly breathing.

He carefully dragged Malix to the cockpit and used some of the bandages that he had made from some Plant Fiber, wrapping them around his wounds. After lying him on the metallic floor of the space-ship, Rex walked over to the teleporter with a tempting and dangerous thought in mind. The Apex came through the teleporter to get to his ship, maybe it worked the same way if he just switched the order. There was only one way to find out, and if it WERE successful, he could find the coordinates that those murderous apes used to return to their planet, and then help Malix turn back into a human. His legs felt wobbly, however, after having his mind being forced into thinking of all of the negative outcomes of trying this. Being warped right into outer space, dying do to a lack of any breathable substance, that's a thing. Or being teleported to an incredibly hosti- oh fluff it. Rex stood on top of the machine and pressed the warp button without thinking twice.

The repetitive shift from a bright red color, followed by a blanket of white and a return to red began and ended swiftly, setting the Floran in a light blue-tinted silver ship with a ship locker, cockpit, and teleporter similar to his own. He looked around for a split second before swiftly walking into the room with the Pilot's chair and control panel. Luckily, these people didn't close the data window that listed all of the different information about the Ship's condition and the such, because he was able to scroll up the data log to the inputed coordinates, pulling out something to write with and something to write on, noting the numbers down. Rex was just about to make his departure when suddenly an Idea dawned over him, which resulted in the once operational control device of the ship being smashed to pieces by the Floran's claws.

Upon returning to the ship, he had another brilliant idea, and Malix had awoken, obviously freaking out about Rex's absence. When he the the missing Floran, Malix tackle-hugged Rex to the ground, clearly happy to see that his friend is okay. "Rex… Alive…!" He said, cheerfully.

"Yeah, I'm fine, heh." Rex said, kinda confused about this hug thing.

"What…. about…. Apex…?"

"Oh, right, them. We could… bring them to their ship and tie them up? That's an idea."

"Apex… essscape and… chassssse…?"

"I kinda… uhm… destroyed their control panel." Rex said, bluntly.

This news came as a shock to even Malix, as he stared at his Blue-haired friend, eyes widened with disbelief. However, it was more of a look of awe rather than disappointment. He nodded, as if understanding an issued command, and proceeded to drag the two unconscience Apex through the teleporter. Shortly after the second one had passed through the warping drive, Malix came back out, and the two were ready to go to the Coordinates that had the Apex settlement and return Rex's new friend back into a Human. Just before that, however, Rex took another writing utensil and something to write on. He beamed over to the Apex ship for the last time, seeing the two apes strapped together in the confines of the surprisingly-strong plant fiber material that Rex had an absolute abundance of. He wrote a short, neatly-written message on the little slip of paper, and placed it on one of the Apex's faces, to assure they would read it when they awoken.

He returned to his ship, picking up the weapons that lay scattered on the floor and putting them into his inventory after handing Malix the sword and shield for keeping, which he was grateful for. The two walked into the cockpit of the ship, inputting the coordinates that Rex had gotten from the opposing ship. As he pressed launch, sending the two starbound, he remembered the note that was placed upon one of the Apex.

_'Sorry about the Ship. ~Rex'_


	7. The First Data

ChaptttTttTtintervention - _Intervention_ - Intervention - **_Transmission Data_** - **Intervention**

"It'll be okay, young one…" A single, feminine voice assured.

"M-mom…?" Another, more innocent sounding female vocal said, questioning the first's words.

"Martha, hide her and keep her safe." The first voice commanded.

"Okay, mother, but… what about you?" A third female voice questioned, sounding not as childish as the second, but not as developed as the first.

"I'll… I'll be fine."

"Mother, we have to leave. We can't stay here…"

"I said I'll be fine."

Footsteps could be heard following this statement.

"Sis… where's mama going?"

"She's going… out." The third voice lied, painfully.

"You said that when dad went out. When is dad coming back?"

"Not now, sis. Not now…"

A muffled voice could be heard, sounding as if it was coming from behind a door or a wall. Despite it being fairly hard to pick up, it was clear that it was the first voice that was being heard. "We have nothing left to give you." The voice said, sounding as confident as possible, but fear could be clearly heard inside of her words.

"You have three more 'objects' you could give us. For your sake, we can make it two." A shady but sturn voice replied.

"What do you mean?"

"Your two daughters, hand them over. Now."

"N-no!" The first voice sobbed. "Please! Anything but-"

Muted sword slashes and screams could be heard.


	8. The Seventh Stage

**_Chapter 7: 'City' is an understatement_**

Rex and Malix paced restlessly back and forth in the main room of the ship, expressions of worry spanning both of their faces. They stopped for a second, looked at each other, looked back down, shook their heads, and continued their pacing. They had finally made it to the planet's coordinates and were ready to fight their way to the DNA altering chamber, expected just a simple lab, similar to the type that he had encountered with Alicia, or a small settlement. When they teleported down, they didn't see a 'small settlement.' Small settlement is considered and understatement. It was HUGE! There were buildings and labs and houses and everything was all seemingly run by technology. There were flying cars and automated streets with moving sidewalks as well as containment areas and paths that led down into subways. And all of this was glimpse just from the front gate of the city.

No, not city.

'City' is an understatement.

Even Metropolis seemed like a bit of a weak word compared to this place.

But this wasn't the issue. Well, the MAIN issue. The main issue, is how they plan on getting to the location where they could turn Malix back into a Human, and getting out WITHOUT dying. That last bit was the hardest part of this task. Another notable piece of information is that the whole outer portion of the Metropolis was covered in guards with high-tier looking armor and guns that Rex would rather not get shot in the chest with. The two Florans were clearly underpowered in just about everything compared to the Apex; firepower, melee weapon, gear, this was looking more and more like an impossible task. Eventually the Florans stopped pacing in their tranced path on the ship and looked up at each other. There wasn't much else an option but to try, as horrible an idea that sounded. Rex felt that the rest of the planet would have already been stripped of ores and any other valuable materials that would give them any sort of advantage, as well as the fact that, due to his lack of focus, they had run out of fuel. So there was no going to different planets and gathering materials.

They nodded in a silent agreement and faced the teleporter, hearts beating at AT LEAST the speed of sound. Drawing their underpowered weapons, they walked into the teleporter, activating it, and shortly after being engulfed in the bright red light of the teleporter's beam.

• • •

The Metropolis always seemed to literally take the breath out of Rex's mouth and put it somewhere else where he didn't have access to it, every time he even so much as glanced at it. He fell backward on the grassy layer that cover the small mountaintop that the two had beamed down on, suffering from a literal loss of words. Malix ran over, thinking it was some serious issue, but ended up simply helping his overwhelmed friend to his feet, earning a meaningful 'thank you' in the process. The two faced the seemingly planet-sized City once again, this time scanning the surrounding area for an entrance that could be used tactically. Assuming that they would quickly be spotted from this type of approach, they began to trek around to the different gates of the Metropolis, trying to find one that would be easier to get through. Due to the fact that there were only four gates, the journey from one to another lasted hours, and eventually it became dark, cuing the unearthly screeches and growls that came along with it.

Suddenly, Rex realized this could be used to their advantage, as they had neared a gate, seeing that there was a very small light source that the guard could use to see. Very small. He pulled out one of the guns that belonged to the Apex that had attacked them, aiming it at the guard's head. Normally Rex wasn't all for this 'killing' thing, but sometimes it was just simply necessary, and the demon inside of him had a slightly bigger influence on his actions, so he wasn't expected to feel sorry for his target's death. The trigger was pulled and the shot was fired, followed by the once standing Apex guard to quickly tumble to the ground and lay there, motionless. Malix smiled at this success, and Rex ran over, dashing through the gate with his friend right behind him. They had no time to stand around and have a celebration for the small victory, as it was only a piece of a bigger whole.

Unfortunately, Rex stopped anyways, unable to help looking around at EVERYTHING that was going on around him. There were giant neon billboards and signs hanging from atop the silver buildings. The streets were crowded with Apex, all staring at him and his friend with concerned facial expressions, some bringing devices that looked like communicators to their mouths. This fact passed over Rex briefly, as he continued his scan of their current position. There was a small park with a fountain and a statue of a very odd-looking Apex figure in the middle of it. He noticed there were more of these small parks, varying in shape and size, scattered throughout the Metropolis. Rex's feelings of wonder and awe were all ruined when Malix grabbed him and ran, as they heard yelling and shouting behind him.

"There it is! FL-H14!" A burly voice said behind them somewhere.

"FL-H14? The only experiment to survive?" Another asked, curiously.

Rex could begin to see that the people talking were Apex in armor similar to the ones that guarded the gates, giving chase. However, unlike the Apex at the gates, these ones were equipped in melee weapons instead of guns, probably to lower the chance of accidentally brutally shooting a random city folk. There were a LOT of guards though, and this became a bit worrisome.

"Halt, intruders! I promise your death will be swift and painless." A guard shouted, rapidly gaining on them.

"I would rather not." Rex yelled back, which actually stopped the Apex in his tracks, as he picked up his communicator and spoke into it. Rex used his wolf ears to single out his voice, and find out what he was saying.

"This one can speak proper grammar… What do I do about him?" He asked his transportable communication device. After a small amount of time, he nodded. "Capture and contain, understood." He put the device away and continued to give chase.

"Losssst… Him…?" Malix asked, looking slightly back as Rex realized that he was still being dragged behind his Floran friend.

"Lossst him? I wouldn't say lossst…" Rex replied, still feeling iffy about the fact that the pursing Apex just stopped when he talked. He also noticed the longer 's' thing that he did.

Rex actually ran along with Malix at this point, running into a building that looked like it was a hotel. They looked around rapidly once inside, spotting something that looked like an elevator. The two pushed the button to call down the lift repeatedly, but the Apex guards were closing in behind them, so they were forced to take the stairs. The two Florans ran up the spiral staircase swiftly, as they barely passed by multiple doors that opened to reveal more Apex guards just at the last second, being able to narrowly avoid them. They were, despite being apes, bloody terrible at keeping up with Rex and Malix as they climbed the stairway upwards. Guess they're too evolved now. Upon coming to a door, Rex opened it and closed it behind them, ramming the door which caused it to fly down the stairs, taking any Apex it collided with, with it, effectively buying them some more time.

They had made it to the roof, but then they realized that there was no place for them to go now. Rex and Malix looked at each other, expressions of worry spanning their faces. They ran over to one of the edges of the room, looking over to see other buildings that actually didn't look that far from their current position. When the Apex finally made it through the door to the roof and hurriedly ran towards the two, this triggered Rex to grab Malix's arm, and jump off of the roof to the nearest building. Landing on another building rooftop, they took off running, Rex mostly dragging his very shaken-up friend who obviously didn't like the idea of jumping from one roof to another. Tough luck, Rex had no intention of being captured.

The Apex on the building they had just jumped from attempted to follow them. One jumped but fell between the gap between the buildings, and Rex did not want to see the end result of that attempt, assuming it would be a little messy. One of the other Apex guard successfully made it onto the building that the Florans were on, but landed belly-flop style with a splat, which looked just as painful as it sounded. The third Apex looked around worriedly, obviously not wanting to share the same fate as the first too. Rex knew he shouldn't do what he was going to do, but he walked over to the Apex that landed on the building anyways, to make sure that he was still breathing, which he was. Rex quickly placed a crafting table down and crafted a bed with some of the wood that he had. He used his matter manipulator to place the bed and used an axe to pick back up the crafting table, which popped into his bag. He then dragged the Apex into the bed that he placed on the building roof, and proceeded to grab Malix again and jump to the next building. He had the intention of killing or letting people die, despite the demon side of him willing otherwise.

This building was the shortest one, as there were no more to jump onto, so they were basically trapped, unless they wanted to try to jump to the ground from where they were, which would probably kill them. Malix started freaking out, thinking they were going to eventually get caught, as Apex guards were visible, jumping from the building that they had climbed. Just as the Apex were about to jump to the building that Rex and Malix were on, the Blue-haired Floran pulled out his matter manipulator, remembering the mass amount of dirt that he had no use for, and began to construct a bridge over the city folk that were far below them. He could tell that they were ALL looking up at them, staring. There was just one problem with this, the Matter Manipulator's path was fairly narrow, and Rex was afraid of heights. He DID, however, occasionally turn behind them to place a wall that separated them from the advancing guards.

He made a sort of stairway upwards, so that they could try to scope out the different labs from the air, until, that is, Rex ran out of dirt to use. He put the manipulator and started using his pickax to recollect some of the dirt, followed by putting that away, and dragging out the Matter Manipulator again to create a sort of platform. They would have to fight. As he finished, The two jumped onto the platform, weapons ready, as the Apex used their weapons to break through the last of the dirt blockades, approaching them. As the two sides neared each other, and each prepared for a battle, Rex felt something weird, something, familiar. This seemed like a bad time for that to happen, but it stopped him from raising his weapon. Malix was confused by this, and looked at Rex, who then signaled to put his weapon down. Reluctantly, still unsure why, he did so, and the Apex did the same. Then the guards surrounded them into an enclosed circle, lightning objects, that looked like tasers, in their hands. they then proceeded to use them to zap the two, knocking them both unconscience.

• • •

Rex woke up with a shock, which was probably the electricity still coursing through his body. He stood up slowly and looked around to see where he was. He found that that he was in a sort of jail cell, but a really nice looking one. It looked like they would but a kind or queen in here, which was kind of ironic, seeing how Rex was a prince. There were two luxurious-looking beds, a widescreen TV, a couch, and a sort of video game console in one side of the room, and a refrigerator and table on the other side. Malix had already awoken and was sitting on the couch with something that looked like a soda in one hand. He had a remote in the other, and was watching something called 'Apex News Now,' which wasn't a very creative title. He looked at the lines of text that slowly crawled by at the bottom of the screen, whilst Malix was looking at the female Apex that was talking, because he's a boy, and boys are weird. The sound was probably turned off so that Malix could just stare at her, which sorta freaked Rex out a bit, so he decided to say something in an attempt to break that trance. "Sorry about the whole weapon-lowering thing…" He stared.

"It'ssss… okay…" Malix replied, still staring at the screen. Rex's plan to stop him from doing so was a failure.

"I just had a feeling something familiar was here…"

Now Malix turned around. "Like…?"

"Like I should know someone or something here…" Rex looked around curiously for a bit, before climbing over the back of the couch to sit by Malix and watch the roll of text at the bottom slide by. The text read; 'Experiment FL-H14 finally captured along with Liberator, Three Apex guards were killed by the escapee and Liberator, City under mass panic from Floran invasion…' He stopped reading right there. They said 'city.' City was still an understatement.

Malix turned up the volume, so that they could hear the news reporter actually speak, thinking it would make up for the fact that he was just staring at the girl before. It didn't, of course, but now Rex's attention was drawn to her as well, but not for the same reasons as his Floran friend.

"Today marks the one-hundredth anniversary of this city, and what better way to celebrate than with the capture of the first experiment to survive the species-alter process!" She said, sounding as cheerful as possible. Worry tinted her voice, as if she believed that they would escape and come for her.

Rex and Malix looked at each other blankly, then back at the TV.

"There was also the capture of his partner, the blue-haired Floran, that has the surprising ability to speak proper grammar, making him a famous target to scientist all over the city."

Malix looked over at Rex, who was staring at the TV in anticipation for what she was going to say next.

"And now for the weather…"

Interest was lost.

Rex got up, walking over to the spot where he had first woken up, and sat down, bending his knees and wrapping his arms around them. He sat there for a minute, wondering what that familiar feeling was, and why he felt that if they got captured and brought here, he would be getting closer to the source of this feeling. He just now realized that his inventory was taken away from him, so he didn't have anything that could help them brake out, so he just sat there, trying as hard as he could to relax. This was an issue, and an annoying one at that, but Rex tried to endure it anyways.

Malix had turned off the TV, since the news reporter handed the baton off to a newsman. He had lost interest too, just not in the same way Rex had. He then plugged in the wires necessary for the video game machine to play, grabbed a controller, and sat back down on the couch, crossing his legs over each other. The screen was bright an colorful, characteristics that you would find in an 8-bit game. He searched through the available titles, coming to a halt and selecting one after a bit of scrolling. It was a game by a developer known as ReLogic, called Terraria. He relaxed a bit and began to play.

_Ah, you have figured out a sense without my intervention._

A familiar voice said, snapping Rex to his feet, forcing him to look around the room. It's been a while since the disembodied voice had spoken to him, perhaps this was the familiar feeling he had? Then again, the voice could talk to him anywhere, why would it need to be just the prison cell? No, that didn't make any sense.

_Perhaps, you should converse with your neighbors?_

It hinted, and Rex could feel that the disembodied presence had left his head. He had no clue what the voice meant by neighbors. There was a giant expanse of silver wall separating cells that where next to each other, and the cell in front of theirs had no one in it. Or, at least, he hadn't seen any movement. He walked up to the bars of the cell sticking his head out. At one end of the room, he could see lockers that probably stashed the prisoner's gear, and the other end of the hall was too far for him to see. Then he heard movement, and not just the growls and grumbles from the game that Malix was playing, he heard shifting from the cell across from his. Rex's focus was entirely directed to that specific location, scanning the cell for anything moving.

After a bit, he noticed two figures in the beds, however features were something he couldn't make out, so there was no point in his attempt to look. Just then Malix called out; "Rex… play… too…?" He asked, holding another controller.

Rex declined this, smiling, but his attention was quickly dragged back to the cell across from them, as, movement could be heard. Seemingly, the announcement of Rex's name caused the figures in the beds to get up, revealing a Hylotl male and an Avian female. They both walked to the bars of their cell, staring at Rex, eyes widened and jaws dropped. He returned them the same look of disbelief. It then dawned on him why there was that feeling of familiarity following him around after he entered the Metropolis.

"Rex…?" The Avian asked.

"…I-Is that you?" The Hylotl added.

"Liax? Maria?" Rex replied, a smile forming on his face.

The two nodded, and grins seemed to have become contagious, as all three of them began to smile.

"How are you guys?"


	9. The Eighth Stage

**_Chapter 8: It's not monkey business if they're Apes_**

"Wow, my gods, how long has it been?" Rex asked, smiling at the sight of his old friends. "It doesn't feel that long… right?"

"Not that long!?" Maria replied, earning a small snicker from Liax. "It's been, like, two weeks! I mean, sure, the universe is big and all, but we're all only in the alpha sector. I would've expected us to meet at least one other time…"

This perplexed Rex a bit. First off, alpha sector? Does that mean that there are more planets and galaxies and solar systems other than what he's already seen? When piloting his ship, and even when he could use the star map to look at the different planets he could land on, he saw a seemingly unlimited amount of life-sustaining rocks! There's MORE!? Second off, He counted, about, five to six days since he last saw the two. The first day is when he met Liax and Maria, the second day is when he went to the planet where he met Alicia, the third day was the mining adventure with said person, the fourth day was returning her home and coming back and meeting Malix, and the fifth day was trying to get into the lab that turned Malix into a Floran… right? His curiosity got the best of him here. They obviously knew more than he did.

"Alpha Sector?" Rex asked. "As in… this is only one part of the universe to explore?"

This was replied to by nods from both Liax and Maria.

"J-just one!?"

"…Yup." Malix answered for them this time.

Rex quickly shifted his gaze to the Floran, then back at Liax and Maria, and, again, to Malix. "You all know!?" He sighed. "Why wasn't I informed…?"

"It was in the notebook I gave you." Liax replied.

Rex face clawed, which hurt more than usual. He looked back up at the people in the cell across from him. "This is gonna sound like I've been in jail a long time… but… what are you in here for?" He asked, curious as to why they were thrown in jail.

"Well…" Liax started. "We were passing by this planet… and we were… uhm… out of fuel. A scan showed that there was only coal closer to the center of this planet, and trees were scarce. Not to mention that any other ore or material of that matter were no where NEAR the surface. So we came here and asked for some fuel. They agreed, but only if I gave them Maria. Naturally, I declined and we proceeded to leave."

"And apparently," Maria added. "That was against the rules or something. So they tazed us and brought us here."

"I remember hearing stories of the Apex and their kindness in helping the other races with technology. This civilization seems to be centered around scientific advancement though." Liax said. "Well, what about you guys?"

"I can tell you we're in here for a better reason then you guys."

They looked interested, the same way they had when Rex told his whole adventure-life story. They were obviously ready for another tale.

"You seem Malix here?" He asked, pointing to the Floran that was playing Terraria. They nodded. "He was at once a Human, but these Apex flagged down his ship and brought him here for experimenting. He managed to escape to another planet, but that didn't mean that he wasn't being chased anymore. The experiment had tinkered with his sanity and morals, so when my friend, Alicia, and I found him, he tried to kill us." The two looked at Malix, disapprovingly, obviously displeased with the fact that they had tried to kill their friend. "After a bit, I've decided to help him turn back into a human and destroy the experimentation operation, so that it wouldn't happen again. Which brings us to now, which was our attempt. We made out way through the city, being chased by guards and the such during the night. As they neared us, I dropped my weapon, because a weird feeling of, er… something familiar sorta shocked me. So, Malix dropped his too, and we were brought here. I guess you guys were the 'familiar' that I felt, and I'm kinda glad we get to see each other again." He said, nodding to Liax and Maria.

"But now we have to get out of here. I've got places to go, so I can't stay here forever. Besides, now that you mention it… I'm outta fuel too…" Liax let out a modest laugh, and Rex couldn't help but to join.

"Looks light we have out work cut out for us." He said.

"Ooohhhh, Jailbreak?" Maria whispered.

"…Essscape!" Malix chimed in.

"But first, a plan must be formulated. We'll share what we come up with tomorrow. Sound good, guys?"

The three nodded.

• • •

That night, Rex couldn't sleep, despite the fact that the lights were off, and it were peaceful and quiet. He was on the top bed, so he got the ceiling to stare at. Malix was already asleep, but he was on the couch instead of the bed. He had fallen asleep, watching some more Apex girls talking about the news. Males are creepy, that fact couldn't be stretched any more than it already was. Just then, Rex heard footsteps, and silenced his breathing, going a bit under his bed covers and facing the bars to his cell. There he saw a lightly armored Apex that was walking REALLY close to the bars of the cell, obviously oblivious to anything shifting around him. Partially because he had earphones plugged in. However, Rex was more interested with the object that he was holding. Some keys.

Keys.

Rex move really really quietly, getting out of his bed. This plan of being quiet was quickly ruined when he lost his grip, and crashed to the floor. He could here footsteps rapidly getting louder, and he quickly jumped into the other bed, becoming still again. His eyes LOOKED closed, but he could see the Apex that was standing out in the doorway. Then he did something that Rex pretty sure he should get fired for. He used the keys to open up the door and approach the fake-sleeping Floran, proceeding to whack him on the head. Rex made a sort of yelp and leapt out of the bed, tackling the Apex to the ground. He used the momentum to push of of the ape and flip himself forward to his feet. Rex took this opportunity to grab the guard's keys, helmet, and flashlight, before flinging him back out into the hallway, and shutting the door.

"Hey! Return those keys at once!" The guard demanded as Rex went back to the bed, crossing one leg over the other, smiling, and spinning the keys around his finger.

"I really do hope you don't get too harsh a punishment for letting a prisoner take your gear." Rex said, mockingly.

"Insubordinate, return the keys at once!" He demanded, once again.

"Hurtful words." Rex said blankly, before twirling the keys around his fingers once more.

The Apex began to bang on the door repeatedly, as Rex walked over to the Tv and and grabbed the remote. He then looked at the Apex, and chucked the remote at him, smashing him in the head with it and knocking him to the ground, unconscience. Rex, feeling happy with how this turned out, walked back to to his bed to fall asleep.

• • •

Rex woke up to see Malix shaking his arm. He stopped this when he saw that his cellmate was finally up, and pointed to the hallway. The guy from last night was still there, on the ground. He was visibly breathing, so that wasn't an issue. The other three, Malix, Liax, and Maria, were already awake, and the latter two were staring at the body on the floor in a sort of wonder. Rex got out of bed and walked to the cell's bars, earning good morning's from Liax and Maria. Their gaze never moved from the body.

"What do you think happened to him?" Maria asked.

"No idea…" Liax answered.

"Oh, I can answer that." Rex replied, jingling the keys he got from the Apex guard.

The three looked at him, eyes widened and jaws dropped.

"Is that…?" Liax asked.

"Yup." Rex replied.

Maria grinned, bouncing up and down a little bit.

"Well, Fuel, escape, and Malix back to a human… We've got some planning to do. First off, escape for Liax and Maria…"

"What? No way!" Liax cut in. "You aren't leaving us behind while you go on a prison break run! I want in."

"Me too!" Maria chimed in.

"Besides, if you find fuel, we need some, anyways."

"Huh." Rex realized. They had a point. It's not like, during the escape, he could just carry an inventory of fuel of coal for everybody. He looked over at Malix, who shrugged. After pondering for a bit, Rex sighed. "Alright, we'll all escape, together."

"Cool!" Maria whispered.

Suddenly, the Apex on the floor jumped up, and looked around at the people in the two cells. "Heh, I was just ACTING unconscience. I think the whole guard would LOVE to know that you're going to try and make a break for it." Then he took off, running down the hall.

Liax and Maria's eyes were widened with, what Rex assumed fear, as the latter mentioned used his keys to open the lock. Once outside in the hallway, he grabbed the same remote that he chucked at the Apex the night before, and, basically, did the same thing, somehow managing to clock him in the back of the head, knocking him out a second time. "Alright, looks like we're coming up with the plan as we go then. Staying still is a bit of a dangerous option at this point, come on." Rex said, unlocking the other cell containing his two friends.

The Avian and Hylotl walked out the door, faces of preparedness about them. Malix had also joined them in the long hallway. "Alright…" Rex started. "First, we'll grab our stuff, then head to the chamber to change back Malix. After that, we'll grab the fuel. Then we can leave. Is that a good order?"

Everyone nodded.

Just as the silent agreement was made, an alarm went off, making Rex jump, and a vast number of armored Apex stormed through the doors on one side of the long hallway. Red lights began to flash everywhere, alongside the continuous message of 'There has been a cell brake-out. Detain the escapists immediately.' As Rex, and his little party of friends, ran near the door, he made a head-long rush for the container that held the four's gear that sat up right next to the exit. Rex fell on his back with an excruciating headache, but he got the storage container opened, and the four grabbed their stuff before running through the door, closing it behind them. Rex and Maria both got out their matter manipulators and placed a random assortment of terrain around the door they had just come through, so that they wouldn't be followed.

"Okay, stuff is officially grabbed." Maria said.

The other three nodded. "Now for getting Malix back into a human, eh?" Rex said.

"Oh, right…" Liax started. "I've been thinking that over, and how are we going to find the lab that had the experiment done?"

"…Hmph…" Malix added, disappointingly.

"Well, we're going to be here quite a while longer, aren't we?" Rex said, before running down the hall. The other three soon began to run as well, each of their footsteps being different and distinguishable. _That's right… _Rex thought. _We're each a different race, so we have different anatomies. Avians have bird feet, so that's why it makes more of a claw-against-metal sound, while the Hylotl have fish fins and stuff, which explains the sorta sloshy sound…_

His thought process was interrupted when suddenly, the wall to the left of him exploded in a giant blaze of colorful fire. When the debris landed and the smoke cleared, even more Apex soldiers filled into the hallway, cutting off any possibility of continuing to go forward. The four began to run back, when, unfortunately, the wall on the opposite side of the hallway from the first explosion burst into colorful flames of destruction to, allowing even MORE Apex guards to fill in any blank spaces. They were already surrounded, and Rex sighed for not thinking this through. The opposing forces began to slowly close in, when, without warning, the ceiling above them began to shatter and crack. What was helpful about this, was the large portion of the ceiling that fell, crushing some of the Apex guards durning it's ascent. It was a very morbid, yet very functional makeshift bridge that spanned across the mass of tail-less monkeys.

From the hole where the piece of ceiling came off, Rex could see another level full of science equipment and technology. Apparently the prison/science lab/whatever they were in was layered. Who knows how many floors there are in order to get to the surface? The thought process was interrupted when a ladder-rope suddenly appearing from the floor above them. Rex looked back at Liax, Maria, and Malix, who were shrugging, whilst the Apex were still closing in on them. Without thinking, Rex jumped onto the ladder and started climbing up. He heard his friends get to the rope as he made it to the top, coming face to face with a female Apex that was just a liiiitle shorter than Rex was. She was wearing a white lab coat and some black pants. she had some fur on the sides of her face and her feet were bare. She had orange-colored glasses that where propped on top of her head, like an accessory. The two stared at each other for a bit, until the Apex blushed. After that, she broke eye contact, and, as an excuse to do something instead of standing there awkwardly, kicked the rope-ladder off of the side of the edge of the hole, so that the guards couldn't climb up to reach them, after the other three climbed it successfully.

"T-thanks." Rex managed to say, slightly confused.

The Apex looked over at him, and nodded, a smile forming slightly. She walked over to the blue-haired Floran, and extended her hand, continuing to avoid eye contact as much as possible. "My name's Lasecil." She said, as Rex shook her hand. She didn't bother to shake the other's though.

"Alright, uhm, Lasecil." Liax said. "Is there any… particular reason you saved us?"

"…Sssuspicious." Malix added.

She blushed a bit from staring at Rex the whole time, and looked towards the Hylotl that asked the question. She was still slightly blushing when she turned her head to face Liax, so he must have gotten the wrong idea, seeing how he started blushing too. "Well, us children are seen as 'The Foolish,' so none of the older Apex actually take our actions into account… and I saw that you guys were captured for wrong reasons, like simply asking for fuel…" Then she looked towards Malix. "Or being taken away to be experimented on. So I decided to use the fact that kids like us are looked at as idiots to do something to help others."

"Ooohhh. I get it now!" Maria said.

"T-that's a b-bit harsh…" Liax added, still blushing a bit. Rex noticed this and shook his head.

"Well, thank you miss Lasecil." Rex said, earning a smile from the female Apex. "But I would feel terrible if you got in trouble for th-"

"A kid murdered someone before." She cut Rex off, blankly. "That kid got a 5-minute talk from his parents, before being released to go about his day again."

The four's eyes widened and they looked at each other, their facial expressions a mix between confusion, and a bit of fear. They looked back at her, and Rex raised his arms up in surrender. "Alright, there's no phasing these guys. Help is appreciated, Lasecil." He said.

She nodded and smiled. Then Lasecil started to sorta jog-run down a hall. "This way." She said, as she was doing so. The others followed.

When going down the long hallway, as they weaved around guards and security cameras, Rex couldn't help but to notice the myriad amount of laptops and desktops and internet modems and static poles and monitors and star maps and planet layouts that littered the laboratory. The blue haired Floran randomly took a laptop from a lab station simply because it was there, and he could. It was then when he realized what his plans currently were, and that they had forgotten already. When the five had to hide in a storage room to avoid some guards, Rex turned to Lasecil. "Lasecil, do you know where that fusion, transformation, whatever, process that turned Malix to a Floran is?" He asked her.

She blushed and diverted her eyesight before answering. "Yeah, it's on a few lab facilities to the left and one floor up. Is that where you're heading?"

"Yes. …Did you just say 'lab facilities?'"

"Yeah. There are a lot of giant labs in our civilization, so we had a LONG way to go it's that's your current destination."

Rex looked back at the others with an expression that cued the tedious work that was ahead of them. Malix and Liax sighed, while Maria just tapped her feet on the floor, impatiently. "Alright, we've been dodging guards and cameras for hours…" Rex admitted, yawning. "Should we take a nap or something?"

Everyone looks at him, expressions of fatigue about them. They were obviously very tired. "Well, the lights are off so we're sorta hidden. I mean, guards can't see out shadows from outside the doorway, so we should be relatively fine, right?"

After this was said, everyone collapsed, which made a very loud sound, which Rex assumed would be an issue. He popped his head out of the doorway to see if there were any guards out there, and the hallways where completely barren. So Rex found a place comfortable to lay. He propped himself on a few storage crates, because even he could see in the dark at this point, and everyone was laying on each other in the center of the room. Rex fell asleep shortly after.

• • •

Someone was banging on the door, and everyone woke up with a start. Maria was the first to her feet, and she was at the top of the people-pile that laid in the center of the room, so her talon feet pierced whoever was under her. Unfortunately, that was Liax, so he got up in pain, gripping his chest. He was napping right next to Lasecil, which might have been on purpose, seeing how an obvious assumption could be made that he liked her. Malix was pinned up against a box, being basically pinned there by the female Apex's feet. He literally couldn't move. Then Lasecil finally woke up, apologizing for not allowing Malix to move, and stood up along with everyone else. The door banged again, and this time, a voice could be heard.

"Laasssseeeciiil! Are you in there!?" A feminine voice called. It sounded older than Lasecil, and a bit more mature. No one moved, no one made a sound. Lasecil walked over to the door quietly and locked it, just as the person on the other side tried to open it. "Dangit…" The voice said silently. Mom's gonna kill me for loosing her… I should've stopped her when she said she wanted to help the prisoners." Her voice became harder and harder to hear, signifying that she was walking away. "I didn't think she was actually going to do it…"

Lasecil could feel everyone's eyes on her, and Rex could see her mouth the word 'sis.' She began to just stare at the door with a blank and empty expression, like something had just traumatized her. Liax walked up to Lasecil, slowly, and tapped her on the shoulder. "U-uhm… are you okay?" He asked her. She looked back at him, smiling.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine." She said, shaking her head. "We need to get that Floran to be a Human again, and get you some fuel, right?"

"How did you know?" Liax asked, blushing for no apparent reason.

"It's all over the news." She said, opening the door to make sure there weren't any guards around. Once it was confirmed that there weren't any, she motioned for the others to come, and they continued down the hall. After a very scarce amount of dodging and evading the detection of guards, they finally got to another staircase, which is where Lasecil stopped. "Up here, there's a few rooms. One of them is the fuel room, so you can get the stuff you need to fuel your ships." She said. "Then we can go and find the transformation process, room… thing…"

Liax acted on somewhat of an impulse or something. He was so grateful of their new friend that he picked her up and kissed her on the lips. He then put her down and started to head upstairs, unfazed by the fact that Lasecil was standing there in a bit of shock. Then again, the other three were in a bit of shock, too.


	10. The Ninth Stage

**_Chapter 9: A Love Story_**

The others made it upstairs to find the room labeled 'fuel' to already be opened, with someone inside. Everyone was still a bit weirded out about that whole 'kiss thing' that Liax did. Lasecil looked over at Rex. "W-what was that…?" She asked him.

"I… Well… It's apparent that he likes you." Rex answered. "That's all I can really tell. But, I mean, who can blame 'em, right? You ARE really pretty, after all."

She blushed, and couldn't help but to smile a bit.

They walked into the fuel room, and Liax was just standing there with his arms in the air, like he was praising someone, or something like that. "Lasecil?" He asked, not even turning around. "How much are we permitted to take?"

"As much as you need. Oh, uhm, you too." She said, directing that to Rex and Malix. Suddenly, Rex felt like an idiot. Not just some moron with a simple mistake, but a genuine idiot. He never introduced himself, OR his friends. He clawed his face a bit, leaving a few scratches behind, which he felt he deserved, even if they were a bit painful.

"I'm so sorry, Lasecil…" Rex said, and everyone looked at him, confused. Even Liax was turned around. "I never introduced myself. My name is Rex." He said. "This is Malix, Maria, and Liax."

"Rex…" She said, hovering over that name.

He bowed respectfully. "I'm so sorry that I completely forgot to tell you our names, even though you've been helping us this whole time."

Lasecil was a bit flustered. "I-it's fine…! Really!" She was blushing like crazy by now, and she could feel her face get warm, so she knew that she was blushing A LOT. Lasecil turned a way a bit, but she could only turn her head so far to one side. Her blushing was still very obvious, and very visible. Malix, Rex, and Liax went about to gather the necessary amount of coal they would need for a full tank of fuel. When they were satisfied, Malix turned to Lasecil.

"…Help …Malix?" He asked.

Now that Rex thought about it, Malix was right. This escape was going pretty smoothly. They have their stuff, and now they have fuel, so now all that's left is getting Malix back to being a Human and getting out of the city. …No… that word is still an understatement. But still, that wasn't that much left to do, provided they don't get in trouble along the way. Just as he was thinking this, however, the alarms went off, and red lights were flashing everywhere, along with someone on the speakers yelling out 'Intruders on floor 8, block 13' repeatedly. Luck, sometimes Rex's worst enemy, other times his best friend.

Lasecil could be heard out in the hallway, which is where the four headed out to. When they passed through the door, they saw a taller, male Apex pulling what Rex and the others assumed to be the alarm switch. His foot was lifted up and placed on Lasecil's face, who was trying to muscle the Apex away from the alarm system. He was obviously distracted with her attempts, so Liax looked at Rex, then motioned towards the male Apex. The Floran understood instantly, and began to run towards the Apex holding the alarm down, with Liax trailing slightly behind him. Rex bashed the ape on the side, before jumping out of the way and letting Liax get in another tackle, with caused the Apex to buckle over in pain and collapse to the ground. Lasecil then pulled the switch back up, stopping the alarm.

Footsteps could be heard, and Maria stood at the top of the stairs in fear, as she could see the mob of Apex guards ascending the stairway at a scary pace. Rex ran over and grabbed her arm, as he dragged her in the direction that their Apex navigator led them. As the five made it around a turn, gun shots could be heard, barely missing the Avian's talons, and striking a giant stack barrels, knocking them over. That seemed a bit late on purpose to Rex, but he soon figured out why. The Apex guards stopped at the barrel blockade, and began to shove them down the isle that the party was heading down. They were rolling as fast as a car's wheel, or, at least, Rex assumed they were, since cars from HIS Earth were all flying. Many flew over head, and others made a sort of maze that everyone had to navigate if they didn't want to get crushed.

After making it around another corner and through a small tunnel, Lasecil stopped to turn around and press some buttons on a control panel, closing a hatch behind them. Everyone stopped running, and most nearly collapsed to the floor. They didn't run very far, but they did run fast, and that required nearly every bit of energy in their legs. Lasecil began to fall over from exhaustion, but was caught by Liax before hitting the ground. He blushed at bit, as she was literally in his arms. He lifted the heavily-breathing Apex into his arms like a cradle, and carried her to some place he could set her down. Meanwhile, Maria was lying down on the floor, wide-eyed, and still conscience, with Rex standing next to her.

Malix was the only one who hasn't even broken a sweat. He was looking at everyone else, wondering why they stopped running. "Tired…?" He asked, looking around at all the breathing bodies.

"Ya know, just a LITTLE." Maria managed to say, breathing heavily between each word.

"…Weak." The Floran replied, earning a stone glare from everyone that wasn't the passed out Lasecil.

• • •

"Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you, the transformy-chamber thing." Lasecil said, anticlimactically. Despite her informal/formal mix of words, the room was breathtaking and brimming with technology. There were monitors and computers and tables and server modems and test tubes and vials and lab stations and microscopes everywhere. But what grabbed everyone's attention was the table in the very center of the room with a device hanging over it. The reason this table was so interesting was because there was a body on the table, and it was twitching and struggling and trying to get out. It was a fruitless effort, though.

No one appeared to be in the lab save the five, and the figure on the table. Rex approached it while the others split apart, looking around at all of the machinery. Liax was walking with Lasecil, his arm around the back of her neck. She didn't seem to mind, though. In fact, Rex spotted a smile across her face. Maria was walking with Malix, and then Rex realized something. The people with the same first letters of their names were hanging out together. Was that… coincidental?

As Rex got closer to the table, he could see that it was a Human female that was strapped to the table, trying to break free of the iron bonds that held her in place. She had red hair, and a simple white t-shirt on. She was wearing camouflage pants, but no kind of foot-ware, which Rex thought was a bit weird. Her skin was very light-tan and her eyes were a shade of blue, much lighter than the Floran observing her. It was hard to tell, but her hight seemed to match that of Malix. She was definitely taller than Rex. Surprising she didn't see Rex there, considering he was standing right next to the table that she was strapped to. After a period of feeling ignored, and remembering the fact that they needed that table to turn Malix back into a human, Rex said something. "Hey?" He said, casually.

The girl's eyes met his almost immediately. Her eyes were moving sorta spastically, so Rex assumed she was in a sort of shock. "H-h-hi…" She said, stammering more than anyone could ever imagine.

"Uhm, well, we kinda need that table, so if you could get out, that would be appreciated." Rex requested, hoping that maybe this would get her to tell him the location of some sort of 'release' switch.

"I-I would g-g-get out on my o-own if I c-c-could…!" She replied.

Rex sighed. "Well, do you know of any release switch? Malix needs to use th-"

"MALIX!?" She yelled, which made Rex sorta jump a little. He heard footsteps behind him, and turned around to see Malix approaching.

He finally stopped in front of her table, standing next to her head. Malix seemed to be in a sorta open-jaw awe-struck sorta position, as his expression matched both. "…Jane…?" He managed to say, which sounded very ghostly, and sent a chill down Rex's spine.

"Mally?" The girl, who's name is apparently Jane, replied. "Mally, is that you?"

A smile formed across 'Mally's' face, as he nodded.

"Well, I see you two know each other, so I'm just gonna go over there and look for a release switch while you two, er, catch up." Rex added before rapidly walking over to the different control panels in an attempt to find the one that would release Jane.

"Mally! H-h-how's i-it been!? L-look at you! You're a F-floran!" Jane yelled.

"…Yeah. Fix… and… be… Human… again…!" Malix replied, with his limited speech.

"Really? Does that m-mean we can g-get off this p-p-planet, and travel t-t-together again?"

"You know it, baby." This made Rex urk. The male language was disgusting. It also didn't help that those four words happened to be able to be said like a perfect sentence.

Jane smiled and blushed a bit. "Maybe you should help your friends find a release switch." She suggested.

Malix nodded and joined the others in their search for a release button. He seemed more driven to this objective than anyone else did. Liax and Lasecil had circled the room about 10 times by now, and hadn't found any labeled buttons anywhere. Rex wasn't having any luck either. Suddenly, time seemed to stop, and a familiar voice made it's way into his head.

_…There…_

As time seemingly went back to normal, Rex suddenly took notice of one button in particular. Without thinking, he pressed it, and the sound of something snapping open could be heard. He looked up to see Jane stand to her feet, before jumping quickly and sitting back on the chair, her feet dangling off of the ground. _Right. _Rex though. _Bare feet. Must be cold to her._ Malix ran over to her, embracing her in a hug that launched them both over the side of the table and onto the floor. Just as Rex averted his eyes, even more buttons seemed to stand out to him. "Malix." He called out. "Get on the table."

Malix let released Jane from the bear hug and did as he was told. As he lay on the table, Rex pressed the 'release' button, which strapped Malix's arms and legs to the platform. He then walked over to the other buttons that seemed to shine in particular, and he pressed them in a certain order, that caused the machine over Malix to brim to life, and aim down at that Floran. Rex then pressed a red button, firing a blue, glowing beam at the table. It was too blinding for Rex to stare at, so he averted his eyes. After a bit of whirring and pulses of light, the blue aura died down, and the machine retracted itself. Rex pressed the 'release' button again, and a figure stood up from where Malix the Floran once was. Now, it was Malix the Human.

Everyone stared at him in awe, except for Jane, who was already hugging him. Malix had dark skin, which made since from his Floran form, and black hair. His eyes were a lighter shade of brown, and he didn't have claws anymore. Other than that he was exactly the same, except for the fact that he was wearing shoes now. Simple, white, tennis shoes.

Everyone seemed pleased with this success, but just then the alarm went off again. Of course they did. Why wouldn't they? Everything was going to swimmingly anyways. They all began to run out of one of the doorways, when Rex fished into his bag and pulled out a bomb. He had one left, and he completely forgot it's existence. Before following the other out the door, he lit the bomb and threw it at the device that transformed his friend Malix in the first place. Rex couldn't turn around to see the device explode, but he DID hear the explosion, as well as the collapse of a bunch of metal. He couldn't help but smile.

• • •

After what seemed like hours of evading, weaving, and maneuvering, the six finally made it to the exit gate of the metropolis. The sun welcomed the six back to the surface warmly. However, the Apex did not. The streets were emptied of bystanders, and strictly consisted of guards with swords and spears. This time, there was no feeling of familiarity, so Rex and Malix drew their weapons as well. Jane had a glowing spear that looked like it was made out of energy, and got in a battle stance behind Malix. Liax pulled out his two curved pirate-looking blades, and Maria pulled out her iron bow. Lasecil actually had a weapon of her own, which took the shape of a large, green gun with yellow marks on it. Rex thought it looked pretty cool.

"You're gonna help fight?" Rex asked, slightly confused.

"I thought these guys were your family?" Malix added. First time Rex heard him without making long pauses, save the time back in the lab.

"Yeah." Maria said.

Liax looked at her directly. "Are you sure about this? I don't want anything bad to happen to you if you were to be affiliated with us as criminals."

Lasecil grabbed Liax's face and kissed him on the mouth, which surprised the Hylotl, making his face almost completely red. For a second, Rex couldn't see his eyes. "There's nothing left for me here, anyways." She said finally.

Liax nodded understandingly, and faced the crowd of Apex that were slowly closing in on the group. Everyone split off into different groups to take on different parts of the mob. Rex actually started out with his gun, which he began to fire. It took down multiple Apex before the masses got too close to him, and he switched to his melee weapon, the sword that Liax gave him, and hacked and slashed at the armored apes. Liax, Maria, and Lasecil were working together to take down a section of guards, with Liax using his swords to slash at the enemy, and Maria using her bow to take down the farther away targets. Lasecil was helping Liax with the closer enemies. Malix, using the sword and shield that he was given by Rex, and Jane, using her long spear, were literally skewering the Apex that were getting in their way, like they were butter.

Rex was the only one fighting alone, and as such, he had to constantly keep his eyes peeled to make sure no one was sneaking up on him from behind. Occasionally, Maria or Lasecil would shoot a few of the enemies around him, but other than that, Rex was completely solo. He was good with his sword, but it was heavy, his arms were getting tired, and there seemed to be an endless wave of the guards. Just before his arms gave out, a voice, one that Rex had not yet heard, came from seemingly nowhere.

_I can lend you power temporarily, Rex._

Just then a light shone on Rex, and his spell book materialized in front of him. He looked at it, speechlessly, for a little bit, before willing it to flip pages, which it did. He willed the book to flip to a page with a certain spell, and placed his hand on that spell, before raising it above his head. A giant sphere of purple energy began to form in his hand, and when Rex was satisfied with it's size, he moved his had to in front of him, and a large, purple, electrified beam shot out of the orb, zapping any poor sap that got in the radius. The spell book disappeared, and the whole wave of Apex that Rex had just taken down with his magic, turned into the Pixel Currency. Rex walked around and picked up the money, as he assumed it's use would show up eventually.

Rex was curious as to the voice that entered his thoughts, but that wasn't his main mindset. He set off to help his other friends fend of the smaller waves. Wait…

Why was Rex stuck with the biggest wave, anyways? Especially since it was just him by his self.

• • •

Liax and Lasecil were sitting on the hill that overlooked the metropolis, holding hands. It was evening, and city life resumed as normal, with the streets being crowded with people. Malix and Jane were sitting in the shade of some trees, talking about their time away from each other, and their experiences. Maria and Rex were standing in between everyone. Apparently, Jane has their ship ready for travel, and Liax was talking about his space adventures, and how Lasecil should join them. Rex chuckled slightly and looked down at Maria.

"Well, I suppose you're going to be a third wheel now." Rex said.

"A third wheel? What's that suppose to mean?" Maria asked.

"Basically, when you're friends with a couple, and you aren't in a couple yourself, you're considered a third wheel. So like, their going to act all lovey-dovey and you're just going to be… there."

"Oh." Maria said, sounding kinda depressed.

"You'll get use to it, I suppose." Rex finally said, in an attempt to boost her mood.

"Well, I'll try." Maria replied, with the best smile she could manage.

Malix walked up to Rex, holding out two capsules. "Now that I've got the storage in my ship back, I won't need these anymore." He said, returning the borrowed sword and shield. "Ya know, I can't seem to thank you enough for what you've done. You're really something, Rex."

Rex bowed respectfully.

"Oh, here. And don't say you won't take it. It's 50,000 pixels. just keep it." Malix insisted. Rex just accepted the pouch of currency, seeing how it was apparent Malix wasn't going to take a no. "We're heading off now. Let us know if there's anything we could do for ya, alright Pal?" He wrapped his arm around Jane, and beamed up to his ship using a device of some sort.

"We're heading off too." Liax said from behind him. Rex turned around to see him and Lasecil holding hands, with Maria to the right of the Hylotl. "Lasecil's coming with us, so now we've got another adventurer to join us." Liax said, blushing.

Maria and Lasecil approached Rex, hugging him at the same time. He didn't need to breath anyways. "Bye." Lasecil said. "And thanks for everything. It may seem like I helped you, but really, you helped me." And she let go, to stand near Liax again.

"I'm gonna miss you, Rex!" Maria said. "Let's meet a little SOONER this time, alright?" And she let go as well, walking over to where Liax and Lasecil stood. The three waved good bye and Liax grabbed Lasecil in for another kiss, before a device was used that beamed the three up to their ship.

Rex walked over to the edge of the cliff where Liax and Lasecil had been sitting, overlooking the town under the beautiful evening sky. He was sitting where Liax was, but there was no Lasecil figure to sit beside him. A feeling Rex never thought he would care about mercilessly stabbed at his heart, which actually made him clench his chest in imaginary pain.

He was alone.


	11. The Second Data

_Intervention-__TRANSMISSION DATA__-Intervention_

Knocking can be heard, hinting that there's a door somewhere. A muffled voice could be heard from the other side of the door. "Open up. We've come to take you, Failure to cooperate will be fatal." More knocking continued.

"It'll be okay, Celite…" A female voice assured. It sounded like the third voice from last time, but slightly older. "You just need to stay hidden."

"No! Sis!" Another voice yelled, followed by more knocking. The voice, which sounded like a more matured version of the second voice from last time, hushed itself. "I know the truth, sis." She whispered. "Mom and dad were killed, and you're going to be next if you try to reason with them…!"

"What choice do we have?" The third voice asked.

"Hide here with me, please! You're the only family I have left…" The second voice cried, desperately.

"I'm sorry, sis." The third voice apologized, followed by a thwacking sound. The third voice knocked the second voice unconscience.

Footsteps could be heard, followed by the opening, then closing, of a door. Then, muffled dialogue. "Please… leave us alone… what do you even want us for, anyways?"

"Simple. To Breed and experiment. Details are for later. Now, where's your sister?" A sinister voice asked.

"Just me. My sister stays."

"I'm sorry, but that is an illegitimate answer. I hope you're prepared to accept the same fate as your parents."

"…I'm sorry, Celite…"

Muted screaming and sword slashes can be heard.

The second voice could be heard crying quietly.


	12. The Tenth Stage

**_Chapter 10: Familiarity_**

Rex was sitting in the pilot's seat aboard his ship, staring into the infinite expanse of stars and planets that lay before him. He had a plan in mind; find a planet to gather a mass amount of resources in and create another base of operation. He lost track of the planet that he made his first base on, and only recently found out about the function on the teleporter that allowed the registration of a Planet as a 'Home Planet,' being able to teleport there without the cost of fuel. This was a page after the page that said that the ship had a voice control from the book Liax gave him. Of course, he knew about the voice control, thanks to Alicia, but it was still good to know that Liax made sure he stuffed EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING in the little notebook.

He wasn't, however, in the mood to actually put that plan into motion. He just felt sorta… empty. Like his heart was torn out of his chest and fed to a monster right in front of his eyes. Rex, was alone. And it seemed like it would have to stay this way, seeing how Malix went off to adventure with Jane, and Liax went off with his new Girlfriend, Lasecil, and his parter, Maria, leaving Rex by his self. He just felt like sitting there in the Pilot's chair for the rest of his life. His will to do anything ever again left with Liax, Malix, and the others. He got up, which required just about every bit of willpower he had, and walked into the main room of the ship, using his matter manipulator to place down a bed. He decided to sleep the thoughts away, despite the fact that he wasn't very tired.

He shut his eyes, after getting in a comfortable position, and attempted to empty his mind.

_Muted screaming and sword slashes can be heard_.

Rex's eyes flashed open, and he fell out of his bed, screaming. He stopped yelling once he hit the floor, and stood up, rubbing the part of his head that he landed on. He looked around his spaceship, trying to find the origin of the screams. He ran to the cockpit window to see if it was coming from outside, but found nothing out there, save stars and planets. It sounded so real, but must've been in his head, as he couldn't locate where it came from. Cautiously, he walked back over to his bed, and attempted to sleep, once again. He calmed down after a bit and, after getting comfortable, fell asleep.

_"…I'm sorry, Celite…"_

Rex jumped out of bed again, doing a small flip in the air before landing flat on his back, which was as painful as it sounded. He got up quickly, disregarding the pain in his back, darting his eyes around the ship's interior in an attempt to, again, locate to originator of the sound. It was a feminine voice, Rex was sure of that. And, for some reason it sounded familiar…

Suddenly, he happened to notice the Pilot's seat, like it was calling him, or something. That's when he snapped bak to reality. There was no TIME for to do nothing for the rest of forever! He would've gotten bored of that anyways. Shoving off the two noises that forced him to jump out of his bed, and realizing that begin alone was, inevitably, a part of his journey, he walked over to the Pilot's seat. "Open the star map." He ordered.

The ship responded, opening the large expansive map of seemingly endless planets. He lost track of the solar system with a lot of planets, which was a good find. He'd have to punish himself for that later. While scrolling through the star map, a certain forest planet caught Rex's attention. It looked similar to the other forest planets that he had seen, but something felt different about this one. But, despite the fact that it only had one other planet to explore from there, he seemed to have pressed the GO button, anyways.

The data panel opened up, scrolling down a list of a whole bunch of data that talked about the condition of the ship and what parts of it turned on which, again, Rex found no use for. He took into account the distance from his current location to the current targeted location, and decided that a nap would be a good idea. It turned out that he, along with his friends, had been in that lab for 2 days. And that was just considering him and Malix. Who knows how long Liax and Maria were actually there, too?

As he lay in bed, getting in a comfortable condition, another sound emanated from a different location. Rex was able to ignore it, as it was a light sound, but it was still present, so it took longer for him to fall asleep that he would have liked.

_The second voice could be heard crying quietly._

_• • •_

Rex yawned, rolling over slowly, until he fell off of his bed, which jerked him up to his feet. He walked over to the cockpit and looked out of the window to see that he had stopped over the targeted planet. He hasn't been on another planet in a while, and this one would have to be his home, for resource gathering and the such. He felt like such a human for going in a world to drain it of it's resources, but there wasn't exactly much of an option here. He armed himself with the sword he got from Liax and beamed down to the surface below, via the teleporter.

Upon landing on the ground, Rex saw an Apex running away from some creature in a purple robe holding two daggers. Before he could consider what was happening, or who the purple-robed humanoid was, he witnessed the Apex trip over a rock in the ground. It fell to the ground, and the purple-robed creature leapt in the air, falling to the ground and driving both of the daggers into the Apex's back. The tailless monkey stopped moving after that, and the purple-robed creature began to look it's remains for, what Rex assumed, money and gear. This all happened so suddenly, and he began to back up slowly, so that he wouldn't get spotted. Unfortunately, he backed up into a tree that had a monster within it's branches. When he hit the tree, the monster fell out and landed in his arms, and then proceeded to make a screeching sound and Rex chucked it, as if it were a reflex.

The purple-robed creature noticed him, however, and stopped it's current action of corpse robbing to kill it's next target. Rex went into it's ready stance, as the creature that gave away his location scurried towards the one in the purple robes. It used it's knives to cut the creature up quickly, and it's remains hit the floor. His charge continued, and Rex ran up the tree behind him, just in time to narrowly avoid a double-knife stab, which instead got themselves stuck in that tree. Rex took this opportunity to slash at the purple-robed creature, and he watched as his body sank to the floor. Naturally, he felt guilty about killing someone, but it was short lived, as he walked over to the Apex corpse, burying it with his Matter Manipulator, and placing some stone which was then followed by the use of his sword, to engrave the words 'R.I.P. Unknown Apex.' He actually wrote that better than he though considering he used his sword for a writing utensil.

Rex set to work, taking out his Axe to begin chopping down the nearby wood for starting out. After a while, he had a few stacks of it in his inventory, and proceeded to start mining around for some ores. After a few failed attempts of finding nothing but stone and dirt, he located some coal, which procedurally led to iron and silver. A while after mining all if the ores he could find, he started climbing out of the hole he dug himself into. As he was nearing the surface, he heard the sound of about 50 guns reloading, as well as the sound of rapid gunfire. He peeked his head out of the hole to see an army of a ton of Apex with guns firing at a smaller, but obviously more nimble groups of the purple-robed creatures from before. Rex decided to dig under the war, and began to tunnel below all of the shouting and screaming and sword swinging and gun shooting in the opposite direction of the advancing Apex. This wasn't his problem, but he didn't want to stay on the planet any longer than he had to. He DID, however, find some ores along the way. Some silver, copper, and coal never hurt anyone, unless, of course Rex made a weapon out of those materials and hurt someone. But that should've been obvious.

He mined himself another hole to pop out of. Coming out, he was unaware that he was covered in dirt, rocks, and dust. It was much more peaceful over in the new setting, as none of those Apex or purple-robed creatures were visible, which made Rex wonder just how far he traveled underground to get to the new location. Just then, he heard footsteps behind him, and was standing face to.. stomach with a towering monster that had hair like a festive native-american hat, and was covered in orange-ish fur. It had a beak, and stood on it's hind legs, which looked like normal feet despite it's resemblance to a bird. Rex was prepared to fight it, but it walked past him, like it didn't even care if he was there or not. It never dawned on him that some of the creatures of the new worlds would actually be neutral. He took a step and slipped, falling flat on his chest. He flipped over from this position to look at his feet, and he found out that he was covered in dirt, and his feet in slippery mud. It then dawned on him that he hadn't done anything to clean himself for days.

Just then, the orange-ish creature from before, along with two other's of it's kind, came along and picked Rex up. He had no opposition to this, seeing how he both couldn't move his arms and legs, since they had them locked into place, and that they were, like, twice his hight, and there was no clear escape root. It especially didn't help when he saw they were going into their territory so the creatures became more frequent. The came to a pool of water, which Rex was confused about, until the creatures carefully placed him in their. It wasn't cold water, it was actually quite warm, and the dust and debris from his body was actually being resolved off of him instead of growing and manifesting in the water itself. Rex let him sink in a little deeper, before sitting up quickly and turning around to face the creatures that brought him there. He looked at one in the eye, and that one looked him back in the same manner.

Rex tilted his head both ways, curious as to why they helped him. He assumed they wouldn't understand him, or if they did, they wouldn't be able to reply, but he asked anyways. "Why did you guys bring me here?" Then they did something unexpected.

They spoke.

"You are Rex, correct?" The middle one asked.

"Uhm… yessss…" Rex replied, with an elongated 's,' too. "How do you know my name?"

"The Great One told us." Another replied.

"Yes, yes. He said you had quite the journey ahead of you, and to prepare you as best we could for your adventure." The last one said.

"I'm not following."

"You see, the Great One can predict the visitors of this planet, and he spoke of you; a blue-haired Floran that will go on many adventures and accomplish amazing feats."

"He ordered us to aid you as much as possible. Foot rub?"

"No thanks. Is there any chance I could meet the 'Great One?'

"Yes, he requested an audience with you once you've finished rejuvenating. We'll see to a new wardrobe and a portable hot spring for you."

This all seemed to good and too weird to be true. Rex had just seen a massive war a little bit ago, and now it was all peace and kind gestures. He decided to keep an eye on everything that transpired around him, but still decided to go along with everything. He finished up in the hot spring and the creatures came, dressing him up in his newly cleaned scarf, a sort of fancy jacket adjourned in gray and blue over a comfortable, white undershirt. He was also given some gray shorts, which he was very pleased about. He was brought through a door into a little structure with an older-looking version of the creatures that helped him out so far, sitting at a table with food on it. He was ushered through the door that was closed behind him.

"Come, sit." The elder said, motioning for him to sit down at the table. The food DID look pretty good. He did as he was told. "Are you hungry? This food was prepared for you, after all." He graciously accepted the offer, and began respectfully eating the assorted meats and fruits that were laid before him. The elder's voice sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. " Ah, you have the thought in your mind, that you've hear me before."

Rex stopped, and looked up at the elder, with food staying stationary in his hand and mouth. He Put down the current leg of some animal and swallowed. "How did you know that?" He asked.

_Simple._

The familiar voice from when he first started out popped in his head.

_I can read your thoughts. That's how I knew that._

Rex looked at the elder with his jaw dropped.

_There is no time to be confused with the fact that I was the voice the entire time. Do you recall when I said how I will always keep watch over you?_

Rex thought back to when he first passed out on his ship after he first got it. He nodded in understanding.

_I… unfortunately… cannot keep that promise. I must leave you to your own destiny, lest you wish to parish._

He looked at the elder again, with a face of disappointment and confusion.

_I've done all I can to help you, but now you must forge your path on your own. You may stay the night here, but in the morning, you shall leave, and look back. Our settlement will have disappeared, replaced by only a flat expanse of land. I know this is happening rather suddenly, but I thought that you would have liked to know that your friends from Earth are that ones that informed me of your existence, so that I may assist you._

"M-my friends?!" Rex yelled. Standing up and slamming his hands on the table. "You mean Lyra, Serenity, and Axis!?"

_The wolf, Terraroost, and dragon, yes._

He sat down is his chair slowly. "So they're looking after me…" He muttered quietly.

"Yes, this is true." The elder answered, in his non-disembodied voice. "But their time of guidance has run out. Time on Earth will be frozen, and your journey will not parallel any other."

Rex looked down at his food, with no desire to eat anymore. The elder was able to sense this, obviously.

"Go on eat. You'll need your strength. I know this all seemed to come at you so fast, but you must be responsible about this situation. You shall sleep, and, in the morning, start your journey, aided by no outside force. Is this understandable to you?"

Rex nodded, and went back to eating, even if he didn't feel like it.

• • •

The creatures had directed him to a bed in another separate structure. He had ben laying there for what felt like hours, thinking about all that has happened. It all happened so quickly, but he made sense of it. Or, at least, of as much as he could. His friends had tried their best to support him as much as they could, and now the rest was up to him. He had all of his gear, as well as some extra clothing. He was also given the portable hot spring, which took the shape of a waterfall that one could walk through, and it would instantly clean whoever walked through it. From here on, he would need to craft, mine, and make his way through the new adventures and obstacles that got in his way without any hints or anyone to rely on besides himself.

Rex sighed, bobbing his foot up and down, signifying his nervousness about this all. Suddenly, this was all faced with confidence and a newfound respect for his task, which was to explore the UNIVERSE! He actually felt a bit queasy, but not overwhelmed. Sure, some of the planets will be straightforward and designed for nothing but resource gathering, but there are a bunch of planets out there that are filled with different journeys and adventures to go through, and they were all for the taking. He stopped tapping his foot in the air, and closed his eyes smiling.

"I suppose this is REALLY where my adventure starts, huh…?" He whispered to himself, before drifting off to sleep.

That night, he had a dream about a girl, and the murder of her two family members. It was more like a nightmare, than a dream. The sounds all sounded familiar for some reason, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Suddenly, his dream shifted to something else, and he forgot about what he was just dreaming about.


	13. The Eleventh Stage

**_Chapter 11: A new friend_**

Rex woke up with a start. He jet out of his bed, and stood on his feet. The sun shone into the blinds of his little structure that he was escorted to the day before. Rex supposed that getting a head start on his day was the best option, and he had the large task of getting home ahead of him, but this time, it was on his own, entirely. He grabbed his bag, and walked out the door. There were groups of the creatures from before walking around and conversing, as well as the 3 or 4 structures that were scattered on the grassy hilltops. Everything had come to him in a blur, with finding out who the disembodied voice was, and learning that his friends had been helping them as much as he could, and a whole buncha other stuff. Rex breathed in some fresh air, and started setting off towards the direction that wasn't the same way as the war he had come across.

As he passed by the final structure, a thought penetrated his mind, the fog snake that revealed itself to him when he was with Alicia. He also said that he was the disembodied voice, before seining him away. Rex went to turn around to go back and ask the Elder if he knew anything about that, but, sure enough, all of the buildings were gone, leaving nothing but a flat expanse in front of him. There were the same creatures walking around the area, minding their own business, but this time, they were blue, instead of orange. He approached one and waved to it. It waved back, smiling, giving him a greeting in their own language. They weren't the same creatures anymore. That was obvious.

Rex went back and headed the way he was originally traveling, in the opposite direction of the war grounds. He had no intention of being caught up in that struggle between the purple-robes and the Apex. He didn't even know which side was the GOOD one, if there was any, that is. As he continued on his way, occasionally stopping to mine some trees and some stone and ores, Rex began thinking. There was NO WAY he was going to stay on this planet with that war going on, but that would be another large waste of fuel, so he resolved to collect enough materials and coal before leaving, to make up for the lost amount. After walking a bit more, he stumbled upon the mouth to a cave, and instinctively walked into it. He needed resources anyways, right?

The cave was narrow, and Rex eventually had to crawl a little bit, banging his head on the ceiling a number of times before he was able to stand up again. On the other side of the narrow gap, he took out his flashlight and shone it around the room. It still went further diagonally down, and the light from Rex's flashlight could only shine so far, so he started walking. He took out his alternate sword, as it only required one hand so that he could use the flashlight as well, and continued down the dark and surprisingly creepy cave. He heard footsteps behind him and spun around, holding his sword out in front of him at the neck of the figure that was sneaking up behind him. It was an Apex, about Rex's hight, if not a small bit taller. The Apex raised his hands in surrender, and Rex lowered his blade.

"….Hi?" Rex said, confused.

"Oh, u-uhm, hi…" The Apex said, tearing up. "Y-you're gonna kill me now, aren't you!?"

That question caught Rex off guard a bit, and he sorta jumped back. The sound of his yell echoed against the wall, and kinda hurt his ears. "No, no! Why would I kill you?"

"B-but aren't Florans s-sided with the cultists?"

"…Cultists?"

Now the Apex was the one that looked shocked. "You don't know the cultists? The purple ones?"

"Oh THAT'S who those are. Sorry, no. I'm not sided with them. They sorta lost any chance of me joining them when they tried to kill me." Rex heard the sound of rapid footsteps and a screech behind him, and turn around to swing his sword in a circle, effectively slicing the monster in half.

"W-woah… Uhm, anyways, so you're not going to hurt me?"

"Nope."

"Oh, okay…" He looked kind of grateful, actually. "Thanks."

"Eh. …Wait… You're, like, a child, aren't you?"

"I'm 15, yes."

"…And you have armor?"

"Yes, I'm in the war…"

"WHAT!? But, but you're just a kid! Why would you enroll in something like this?"

"I shouldn't be talking to anyone about this, but… We were forced into this… We didn't have a choice."

"…" Rex just kinda stood there for a bit in a disgusted awe, closing his eyes and patting his head with two fingers, pondering what he just heard.

"Well… I need to get going… We never saw each other, okay?" And he walked past him, down farther into the cave, which was the same direction Rex was heading. In courtesy for the Apex, he waited a bit, before going down the cave too.

He didn't walk far before coming to a brutal sight. The Apex that he had just spoken to was on the ground, GIANT gashes visible on it's body. There were a few knives imbedded in his chest, and he was bleeding, even though it looked like there wasn't anymore blood to lose. He was dead. A kid, just like Rex, and dead. He stepped around the body, and walked into an expansive room, that seemed too perfectly dome-shaped to be natural. He heard swift movement around him, and used his matter manipulator to place down a few torches. After which, he pulled out his primary sword, and held it in a ready position.

His ears picked up sound behind him, and he turned around in a slash, getting the figure on the side. It flew to the floor, and rex leaped in the air, hearing the other sounds behind him. He took his sword and plunged downward, landing his blade in a figures back. He pulled it out and looked at the figure. It was a cultist, and, most likely the owner of one of the daggers that was stuck in the Apex. A flame could be heard behind him, and he saw a cultist running at him with a torch in his hand. When he was a few feet away from Rex, he threw the flaming stick, which Rex slashed at, catching his blade on fire. He used that to slash at the cultist, burning it to ashes, before the flame diminished and it was just a blade. He resolved to leave immediately. He wanted nothing to do with the war, whatsoever.

Rex pulled out his pickax and began to make a gradual staircase towards the surface. It was going at a fair pace until his pickax broke. The stone literally chiseled and the wooden handle was split in half. Another thing. Rex left all of his crating table supplies on the ship. He planned on using the wood he had to make his own crafting table, but was stopped by a creepy sound behind him. He turned around to come face to face with an arachnid-type creature. Rex hated spiders, with a passion. In a moment of, he slashed the arachnid down the middle and ran in between it's two halves. He got back to where he started his cave to see the whole that he just just come through fill with the monsters. He had no choice but to run around the room and hope there was another way out.

It was then that an explosion could be heard, as well, as the part of the wall above Rex blasted open with a few Apex flying out. Rex took this opportunity to jump up and climb through the hole that the blast made. Once he made it up, his eyes met those of a cultist, but it didn't attack him. Instead, it jerked it's head towards a section of the wall that led deeper into the cave, then proceeded to act like Rex wasn't even there. Without protesting, he ran down the cave path. after a while, he turned around to see the arachnids closing in on the cultist. In the final second, he could see the purple-robbed humanoid give Rex a nod, before pulling a lever that caused an explosion that made rocks fall to the ground, creating a makeshift wall that separated him and the monsters. There wasn't any real option except to go down the cave that he was stuck going down, so he began to trek the undergrounds.

After what felt like an eternity of walking down the hallway, Rex came to a sorta dome-shaped room. There were bodies scattering the floor. A mixture of monsters, Apex, and the Cultists made up this unearthly sight, and the fact that they were already decomposing didn't exactly help with making the scene look any less scary. Something that caught his eye was the unmistakable shape of a pickax lying in the grasp of a cultist that lay on the floor. Rex grabbed for it, and the cultist flipped over and jumped to it's feet, attempting to smack Rex on the the head with the mining tool. As if atone to a reaction, he pulled the cultist to the ground and severed it's arm with his blade. Then he pushed the body to the wall with such force, that if the cultist wasn't already dead, it probably didn't have any bones left working. He leaped back a bit in shock from what he had done, still holding onto the pickax in one had, and his sword in another. He kept the tool anyways, putting the sword away in his inventory. That guy wasn't going to need it anymore anyways.

• • •

Rex finally dug the last bit of Earth that led to the surface, and used his matter manipulator to close the hole that he just came through, just incase someone or something had followed him. He looked around to a peaceful sight. It was the top of a fairly short hill, and the sun was nearly gone already, but light still shined brightly. The area was hardly wooded, but trees were still littering the grounds here and there. The hilltop was pretty expansive, and seemed like the perfect location to make a base of operations. It was a shame that the planet was infested with war, it was such a pretty place. And this was the first planet where Rex had found any sort of creature that WASN'T hostile towards him, too. But the war and arachnid creatures were a deal breaker. It there's one thing that Rex hates, it's heights. If it's anything else, it's arachnids.. More specifically, spiders. They're, like, the bane of his existence.

He began to walk a bit on the surface of the planet in an attempt to find a bit of water to clean himself with. His underground travels and lack of vision caused him to fall over in the mud and dirt a painful amount of times. The sun was setting, and practically gone already, but the urgency to find some water and teleport off the planet didn't seem that urgent. After a while, he noticed a lone house sitting somewhere not that far from his location. _I feel bad for whoever has to actually live here… _Rex thought, as he walked past it, paying it very little attention.

As he walked down his path, he heard some doors opening and the sound of a female screaming behind him. He turned around to see some cultists entering the house at a rapid pace, like they had a job to do and this wasn't it. He ran back in burst through the doorway to see three Cultists surrounding an Avian girl that was curled up in a ball against the wall. One of the Cultists raised it's sword to slash the girl, and Rex used the time he had before the swing to flip over the head of the Cultist and slash the sword out of it's hand while he was in the air. He landed in a fighting stance, his back facing Avian, with three Cultists in his sight. "You know…" Rex said. "I've heard that breaking and entering is illegal."

"Are you joking yourself into a grave, unusual Floran?" One of the Cultists asked.

_Unusual Floran? Why did he call me the- ooohhh… _Rex thought. Florans aren't suppose to be literate. He almost forgot about that, not ever meeting any other Floran except Malix to remind him of this. One of the Cultists lunged, which Rex used the momentum of to fling at another one, knocking them both down. He followed this up with a sword swipe, effectively killing two. Rex knocked their bodies out of the house, while the last Cultist attempted to run away. Rex chased it to the edge of the hilltop, where the Cultist jumped off and landed, finding itself home-free. Rex took out his bow, and successfully sniped the purple-robed being in the back, forcing the body to collapse to the ground.

Rex put away his weapons, returning to the house to see the Avian girl curled up in terror, looking at Rex like he was a murderer, and she was next. He extended a hand, trying his best not to look threatening. His Floran form wasn't exactly making it easy. "You alright?" He asked. It's just common courtesy to ask someone if they're okay, after all.

"Y-yeah…" The Avian replied, accepted Rex's hand as he pulled her up to her feet. "Thanks.."

Rex nodded and began to walk out of the door.

"W-wait…!" The Avian called out to him. He didn't know what she was doing, and neither did she. "It's night time… So that means there are monsters out there."

"Yeah." Rex replied. "But I think I'll be fine."

"I know this is a bit weird, seeing as we just met, but please, stay the night? It's safer indoors… Besides, it's the least I could do for you saving my life." She requested. Rex thought about it, and how he could simply beam to his ship, but this might be an excuse to actually have someone to talk to for a while, before going back to being alone. Still, he wasn't one of those people who like to take other's up on their offers.

"Alright…" Rex finally said, after thinking it over.

The Avian smiled and him, and he couldn't help but to smile back. He extended his hand. "I'm Rex. Rex Tyrrant. Pleased to meet you."

She shook it. "Celite Evelis."

Rex froze, looking at the female in a sort of terrified trance.

"Something the matter?" Celite asked him, noticing his facial expression.

"N-no, it's nothing…" Rex replied, managing a smile.


End file.
